We will be commemorating the 55th anniversary of our Independence from Britain next Wednesday. Whenever we examine events that occurred in the past, we must acknowledge that we inevitably do so from the present in which we are enmeshed. This implies that, no matter how hard we try, we cannot totally escape being influenced by the challenges and opportunities that confront us contemporaneously. It behooves us to consider that context in looking backwards.
Politically, we have just narrowly escaped another attempted election rigging by the PNC. They, of course, had rigged elections in 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985. The 1978 rigging of the referendum to decide whether we should have a referendum to ratify the PNC’s proposed 1980 Constitution to give Burnham supreme powers was thrown in for good measure. The PNC had been installed into office in 1964 after the British (with prodding from the US) conducted what has been described as a “constitutional coup” to remove the PPP from office. Independence had been promised for 1962 to the party that won the 1961 elections. If that promise had been kept, we would have attained independence contemporaneously with Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago.
But even though the PPP won the 1961 elections, the US, convinced that Cheddi Jagan was a “fellow traveler” of Moscow, opposed independence for Guyana under him. Their CIA precipitated riots in Georgetown on Feb 16, 1962, halting independence and offering them the pretext for changing the electoral system from the constituency-based First Past the Post (FPTP) to Proportional Representation. This almost unique electoral system in the British Commonwealth was introduced, along with forging a coalition between the PNC and United Force (UF), to oust the PPP.
Independence for Guyana, then, was granted under contrived grounds, and, as was pointed out by Immanuel Kant, since ends are nothing more than consummated means, “Independence” under the PNC evolved into a farce as far as democracy was concerned. Since the British and Americans had connived with the PNC to remove the PPP, there was precious little moral suasion they could summon to deter the PNC from rigging elections and creating the dictatorship they did.
“Independence” for Guyana became the movement that segued us from living under an authoritarian colonial state to subsisting under a totalitarian regime. Because elections were rigged, the political parties that were allowed to function simply served to legitimise the PNC’s illegal rule. The outside world could note that elections were held regularly and gloss over the fine print that “opposition claimed the elections were rigged”. Independence for Guyanese also meant that the PNC expanded its “Disciplined Forces” – Police, Army, National Service and People’s Militia – into one of the highest armed forces-civilian ratios in the world. Beatings and assassinations of the political opposition entered Guyana’s political practice.
Economically, Guyana plunged from being one of the top economies in the British Caribbean to its worst – hovering precariously above perpetually poor Haiti. This was after the PNC promised to “feed, house and clothe” the nation and nationalised 80% of the economy. They were so inept that they even wrecked the bauxite industry that provided the world with our unique high-grade bauxite that were used for making kilns to literally fire the world’s factories. They destroyed the independence of the Trade Union Movement by seizing control through a welter of underhand stratagems.
Socially, the country was rent apart because of the racist policies of the PNC, which doled out jobs in the nationalised economy to its base, specifically to those who had “party cards”. Crime stalked the land as the “choke and rob” phenomenon of Georgetown segued into “kick down the door” banditry that terrorised rural residents.
Today, unfortunately, many of the debased features of PNC rule have remained entrenched systemically in our politics, economy and society. The last five years of PNC rule between 2015 and 2020 revived many of those practices after 23 years of the PPP attempts to reverse them after 1992.
The struggle continues to return democratic praxis to Guyana.
