Tomorrow’s elections will represent an important inflection point in our politics for several reasons, the major one being the most significant shift from the race-based voting that has dominated since 1957. As we have pointed out ad nauseam for over a decade, a differential emigration rate for our “six peoples” has resulted in Indian-Guyanese inexorably losing the majority they possessed in 1980. The early victory of the PPP in the elections of 1957 confirmed Jagan’s 1956 assessment that most Africans had followed Burnham’s PNC after he split the PPP in 1955. The formation of the United Force (UF) in 1960 provided a vehicle for the Portuguese and Amerindians – the latter because of the influence of the Portuguese-dominated Catholic Church.
The British conspired to oust the PPP Government by facilitating the PNC and UF forming a winning coalition after they imposed Proportional Representation (PR) for the 1964 elections. PNC’s election rigging between 1968 and 1985 negated the PPP’s numerical advantage, and the latter’s victory in the 1992 “free and fair” elections was a surprise only to the WPA, which boasted they had overcome racial voting with their “multiracial” leadership. Multiracial support was also the claim of the PPP and the PNC even as they pragmatically accepted their respective Indian and African bases. Amerindians were courted by all parties and have adopted a transactional approach to politics.
The results of the 2011, 2015 and 2020 elections reflected the racial demographic shifts, with the PPP only securing the Presidency and Executive in 2011 with a plurality; the APNU/AFC coalition winning in 2015 by one seat brought in by the AFC, mainly from their Indian Guyanese supporters. APNU/AFC’s shuttering of four sugar estates with 7000 mostly Indian-Guyanese jobs lost cost them that constituency along with the 2020 elections, to the PPP. The inflow of oil revenues by then, however, allowed the PPP to change the economic relations between racial/ethnic groups from a zero-sum game to a win-win one. The PPP jettisoned Marxism as their guiding ideology, overtly accepted the salience of race in making political choices and campaigned heavily in African-Guyanese communities – along with Amerindians – while pointing to their just as determined efforts to include them in economic development. The African-Guyanese community – especially youths – has responded positively in significant numbers. The PNC, however, which, because of their historic minority status, should have appreciated the importance of cross-racial votes, gave it short shrift. This might be so because election rigging had made it irrelevant. Tomorrow, the PPP will definitely pull a significant chunk of African-Guyanese votes, which would have traditionally gone to the PNC.
One feature of Guyanese politics has been the presence of “third parties” which assert they are the “true” multiracial alternative to the PPP and PNC. However, they appear, burn brightly for a while, then fade like the WPA. This seems to be the fate of the AFC, which appeared in 2006 and pulled significant votes from the PNC when an ex-PNC African executive was head of its slate and from the PPP in 2011 and 2015 when an ex-PPP executive was leading. Dissatisfaction with the larger parties and not “non-racial” voting appeared to have played out.
For tomorrow’s elections a new “third force” – WIN – has replaced the AFC but with a twist. Unlike its ideologically driven predecessors, it has taken a totally populist approach to politics. While there are several variants of populism, there is always a maximum leader who claims to represent “the common people” against a corrupt elite – whether political, economic or social. Here, Azruddin Mohamed, who was sanctioned by the US OFAC, has had a meteoric rise, as his populist message to promise them all the things they want, combined with generous giveaways, bought out our self-defined “scrapehead” underclass from the PNC, along with some of the traditionally disaffected. Even though the PPP has worked strenuously to develop Amerindians, their position as the most dispossessed and ostracised, combined with their transactional approach to politics, has given WIN’s populist strategy traction in their communities. It should be pointed out that one of the features of populist leaders is they do not speak in the bland language of educated professionals but that of the underclass. Significantly, even the major parties have been forced to affect this language.
By my estimate, it would seem that the PPP, with credibility based on its record, will obtain a comfortable majority of some thirty-six seats, with PNC twenty-three, WIN 5 and AFC 1.
