Dear Editor,
I write in response to Dennis Wiggins’ letter captioned “The PNCR must develop a strategy to attract disaffected Indian voters” (07.10.07). Mr. Wiggins rightly points to the history of racial politics in Guyana and the great disservice it has done to the country. He goes on, however, in almost the same breath, to champion the right of ACDA to mobilize the Afro-Guyanese population to “struggle against racial politics”. While I also support the ACDAs’ right to free speech and association, I would have thought it prudent that Mr. Wiggins would have counselled a more inclusive, multi-ethnic approach to the struggle against the PPP/C government.
He chides the PNC for its failure to pursue the Indo-Guyanese population and recommends that they do so since “sensibly, the goal of [a] political party is to win a plurality”. The question begs: Why should political parties be the only source of multi-racial struggle in Guyana? Although Mr. Wiggins observes that the AFC “gained unprecedented access as a third party to the political space” through its adoption of a multi-ethnic approach to politics in Guyana, the undertone of his article suggests a longing for a return to power of the PNC. He betrays his intentions by his curt dismissal of the efforts of the AFC to pursue the same course of action he recommends to the PNC. The AFC is just two years old this month. The results of the last election are a testament to the longing of the Guyanese people for something new, something different, something other than the PPP/C or the PNC.
Mr. Wiggins further contends that the AFC “has since contented itself with operating within largely an ineffective parliamentary system to effect
