With elections just a month and a half away, it is very evident that the premises of the politics of Guyana have changed significantly. Long described as “ethnic censuses”, the elections of 2011, 2015 and 2020 displayed an increasing degree of fluidity that suggests while the ethnic factor remains important, ethnicity is no longer “political destiny”. In the expansion of post-WWII democratic norms, ethnicity was one of several identity markers, like religion and tribal affiliation, that went against the individualistic premises of liberalism’s free-floating individuals who make rational choices to navigate their social world.
“Identity politics” posits there is no such thing as an “individual” personality outside of society. The feral children left on their own in jungles prove that even those “traits” assumed to be “human” have to be transmitted socially. “Individuals” are always the product of particular social environments that strongly influence the world views of those in those environments. In Guyana, the marker that was activated in the mobilisation for votes in democratic elections was “ethnicity”, which is related to culture and place of origin. “Ethnic politics” was born in Guyana, and by the 1960s we ended up with three major parties that represented the three major ethnic blocks – PPP (Indian Guyanese), PNC (African/Mixed Guyanese) and UF (Portuguese and Amerindians).
However, the same democratic imperative of agglomerating the highest possible numbers of voters to accede to office and power makes the size of the various ethnic groups in a society critical to the specific form of politics practised. If one ethnic group forms an absolute majority, as in Singapore, much smaller groups will pragmatically become accommodative to the larger group. In Guyana, however, the two major blocs approached each other in size, and the African/Mixed-backed PNC, with support from the key state coercive and bureaucratic institutions, never conceded legitimacy to the Indian majority-supported PPP. When, for its own strategic reasons, the US allowed the PNC to gain power, it turned a blind eye to the latter’s rigging elections – along with its supporters.
However, while the PPP returned to office in 1992 via “free and fair” elections, the demographic breakdown between the several ethnic groups inexorably changed because of massive but differential emigration since the 1960s. No single group controlled an absolute majority: Guyana had become a nation of minorities. As such, a new kind of politics was demanded – a politics of downplaying ethnicity and reaching across the divides. This was exemplified in the 2011 election, where the PPP could only muster a plurality of votes to secure the presidency and government, but the Opposition APNU and AFC controlled a majority in the National Assembly.
Logic dictated the latter two parties form a pre-election coalition, which they did to win the 2015 elections. However, APNU lost the new plot and, against all political logic, marginalised their AFC partner and alienated the Indian Guyanese votes they had brought in by shuttering four sugar estates. In the meantime, the PPP had intensified its historic courtship of “outside” votes and won the 2020 elections with 50.7% even though its Indian base had dwindled to less than 39%. From the word “go”, they showed that they understood the new political logic and, on a “One Guyana” platform, launched a developmental agenda that ostentatiously courted support from the PNC’s traditional African/Mixed constituency. Very high-profile and well-publicised direct injections of funds and projects were initiated in all communities.
In the meantime, the PNC/APNU and now the ATC have doubled down on the old racial/ethnic cleavages, even though they cannot obtain a majority to form a government without “outside votes”. The second factor playing out is the “non-ethnic” voter “swing voters” who vote on issues and governmental performance. They have now become significant on account of the new demographics where no single ethnic group commands a majority. Some believe that a new party by a US-sanctioned playboy tax dodger will pick up some of those crossovers but at best might hive off votes from the beleaguered APNU/PNC and AFC.
The PPP’s demonstrated equitable developmental programme will deliver victory
