In Guyana, the political system appears to be very dysfunctional for several reasons. We incorporate verbatim findings from a study of the impact of political trust – or its absence thereof – in South Africa, which is even more culturally plural than our polity, and which is blamed for our challenges. Among those challenges, the absence of political trust looms very large, since it is a central value of democracy. Its presence in a society is indicative of citizens’ support for the political system as much as them exercising their franchise. Political trust should be more enduring than the act of voting for, or supporting, a party or government. In transitional societies that are undergoing democratic consolidation, political trust is crucial for citizen acceptance of decisions by government, even when unpopular. Political trust is the glue that keeps the political system together.
According to one political scientist, political trust can be understood as ‘the probability that the political system will produce preferred outcomes even if left untended’. It is the perceived likelihood that the regime would deliver public goods without having to be closely scrutinised by citizens. In Guyana, the most salient feature of political motivation among Guyanese have been strident accusations that the Government of the day is favouring particular ethnic constituencies, depending on which of the two major constituencies – Indian or African Guyanese – are their core supporters.
Political trust, then, is closely linked to the concepts of political support and legitimacy. The three can be understood to relate to each other in the following way: support for the political authorities or a regime would typically express itself in two forms – trust or confidence in them, and in the belief in the legitimacy of these political objects. Thus, political trust is present when citizens feel that their own interests would be attended to even if the authorities were exposed to little supervision or scrutiny. All Guyanese should at least agree that this has not been the case since the early 1960s, when the PPP Government, supported predominantly by Indian Guyanese, was accused by the African-supported PNC of favouring their supporters.
Legitimacy is present when people believe it is right and proper to accept and obey the authorities, and abide by the requirements of the regime. Trust and legitimacy are therefore distinct concepts. We can expect them to vary independently- although it is likely that those who consider a regime legitimate would also have considerable trust or confidence in it. Equally, people may lose their trust in the abilities of authorities to run a country, yet not be prepared to deny the authorities in general the moral right to rule and to expect obedience to outputs. In Guyana, the PNC’s rigging of elections and their destruction of the nationalised economy by the 1970s made a large bloc of African Guyanese withdraw their support.
They also implicitly withdrew their trust, since that in turn depends on political support for the regime and its authorities. One expert distinguishes between two types of support. Diffuse support is a reservoir of positive attitudes and goodwill towards the regime as a whole, its underlying principles, and the larger political community. Diffuse support is more durable than specific support, and is essential to tolerating poor regime outputs in the short term. Diffuse support may appear as a common consciousness or group identification with the larger political community, and satisfaction with the regime’s performance. Specific support, on the other hand, relates to citizen satisfaction with outputs (decisions, policy and actions) and performance of political authorities, such as leaders and institutions. Trust and specific support are distinct, so, as with African Guyanese in the 1970s, by 2011, for instance, some Indian Guyanese removed their specific support for the PPP, and they were removed from office. Even though voting in Guyana is still ethnically influenced, from a recent LAPOP survey, it appears that political trust as an aspect of specific support may have its roots in experience, and is dependent on short-term performance evaluations of incumbent authorities.
Both political parties, therefore, should attempt to inspire trust through equitable programmes.
