The US Embassy and Guyana Elections 2015 (Part 1)

Dear Editor,
In my most recent opinion polling in Guyana last October, almost every business person and almost every PPP supporter felt the US Embassy was primarily responsible and involved in regime change in Guyana in the May 2015 General Elections. It was generally felt that the UK and Canadian Ambassadors simply went along with the US Embassy’s position to remove the PPP from office; PPP leaders were even hostile towards the British and Canadian Ambassadors and towards the governments of those countries also. So the Canadians and British felt they had sufficient reason to adopt an anti-PPP position in the elections and to do all they could to remove the PPP from office. The PPP looked for its problems.
Some business people and some PPP supporters felt that the US’ role in removing the PPP from office was justified because of the arrogance of the political leadership of the PPP and its anti-US stance. The leadership was even arrogant towards its own supporters. People simply could not understand why the PPP leadership took the position to personally attack the US Ambassador Brent Hardt and to adopt a generally anti-US (hostile) attitude when the country was on the eve of a general election. The leadership simply did not understand basic international politics that is learned in an introductory course in political science.
Since the PPP was perceived as anti-US, it was inevitable that the US would support the PNC (APNU)-AFC coalition and do all it could to bring about a PPP defeat. It should be recalled that the US was also involved in the toppling of the leftist anti-American PPP (Jagan) administration in 1953 and again in December 1964; the US encouraged the formation of the African PNC and its break from the multi-racial PPP in 1955 and eventually installed the pro-imperialist PNC in Office.
The US continued to support the PNC (dictatorship) eventually forcing it (after the collapse of communism) to democratise and hold free and fair elections in October 1992 that led to its defeat. So the PNC has been a natural ally of the US, and given that the PPP’s rule in Guyana depended on the goodwill of the US (that “giveth and taketh” democracy), the PPP should never have adopted a hostile attitude towards the big brother from the North or take a pro-Russian stance; at any rate, PPP (Indian) supporters are not anti-American and as such the PPP should never have been anti-US.
Those of us who study American Foreign Policy (in political science in graduate school) know it is elementary that you don’t provoke the US with anti-American policy statements or attack its representatives in Guyana. That is precisely what the PPP did and paid the ultimate price of being removed from office.

Sincerely,
Dr Vishnu Bisram