Dear Editor,
During a reception at the Cuffy Ideological Institute in mid-1982, Dr Ptolemy Reid, then Prime Minister of Guyana, sought to explain to me why he had developed an almost infinite faith in the political leadership of President Forbes Burnham. He gave as one reason Burnham’s tenacious handling of the late 1950s coalition process between the newly formed People’s National Congress (PNC) and the United Democratic Party (UDP). As he told it, even before the 1957 elections, Burnham saw the wisdom of working with other political forces to beat the PPP Jaganites and the 1957 PPP (Burnhamite) defeat steeled him in the view that coalition/co-operation with other groups and individuals was essential to his party’s future success. There was, however, much opposition to his position and although he was defeated on the issue at party forums, he held out and at one point even threatened to leave the PNC and Guyana if the party did not follow his lead. The merger took place and although the PNC did not win the 1961 elections, it received some 41% of the votes to the PPP’s 42% and the United Force’s (UF) 17%, and thus clarified the strategy for gaining government. So far as Dr Reid was concerned, it was Burnham’s clear-sightedness and steadfastness that won the day for the PNC.
I generally took these homilies of Dr Reid on faith, but my own cursory research appears to bear him out. Even before the 1957 elections, the Burnhamites threw their weight behind the ex-Jaganite and then independent, Eusi Kwayana, who was standing for the Central Demerara seat, and around the same time there were claims and counterclaims about a possible PNC coalition with Lionel Luckhoo’s National Labour Front (NLF) (Daily Chronicle, 1.8.57). The 1957 loss behind it, by mid-1958, merger talks with the UDP were in full swing and the Chronicle reported that: “There is, however, a strong body of opinion in both parties totally against the idea of a merger… The view is that since the PNC is an offshoot of the PPP, its members should consider merging with that party. On the other hand, some people believe there should be a merger with the National Labour Front, which is an off-shoot of the UDP. This suggestion does not seem to find favour in the PNC or the UDP since the views on (West Indian) Federation of the PPP and the NLF are on the opposite side. Apart from Federation, it is also felt that if there is a merger between the PPP and the PNC and the UDP and the NLF, it will go far to build up a strong two-party system which would implement the suggestion of the members of the British Parliament who said here recently that the two-party system would make for healthier government in a British Guiana of the future” (Daily Chronicle, 29.5.58).
The above reminiscence resulted from my reading of the AFC rejection of alliance with the PNC and Mr Raphael Trotman’s further explanation of that process (‘AFC says no to alliance with PNCR’ SN, July 26); ‘AFC’s decision to exclude PNCR not unanimous’ KN, July 30). And quite apart from some historical similarities, it is given here because I believe that it conveys a few lessons and allows me to make some relevant comments.
Firstly, it teaches that when facing this kind of difficulty, leadership needs to be resolute, as people generally only adopt new positions grudgingly and gradually. A unitary opposition slate at the next general election is a critical component if government is to be captured and governance transformed. The AFC would be a valued member of any such partnership and it is therefore incumbent on all those who are supportive of the venture to be constructive and encouraging. This is by no means a request for quietism and already there has been much criticism and defensiveness. What is most ironic is that the AFC is now viewed by some as being gripped by the kind of racial bickering it claims it wishes to nationally suppress. Of course, more than anything, this speaks volumes about the nature of our polarized society. These issues aside, I believe that if it is to survive, the AFC must give sufficient weight to the fact that many, if not most, of those who voted for it in 2006 did so largely because they calculated that the party would have contributed to a change of governance in Guyana.
Secondly, the example indicates that if the intention is to come to government, hard electoral numbers and critical concrete conditions, not ideological and other peripheral issues, must drive the process. In ideological terms, there was some merit in the position that the PNC was much closer to the PPP than it was to the African middle-class UDP. However, though not said in the report above, the PPP would have already burnt its bridges with the West and this had to be adequately contextualized. Some would go as far as to say that deals requiring PPP exclusion from government had already been made. Ethnic voting has been with us for over half a century and nothing I have heard so far has yet convinced me that this pattern will not hold at the next elections. Indeed, I find a good degree of contradiction in the contention of many of the PPP/C’s critics that that party is massively favouring Indians but that significant numbers of Indians will vote against it! Even in normal political situations holding this view would require an enormous imagination!
Thirdly, given their historical location, we can understand how in the 1950s persons could have had faith in the Westminster model, but after over half a century of bad experience and so much academic and other work in this area, only the most self-interested could still hold to this conviction. The example also suggests that to be successful, any future partnership needs to exude a clear picture as to why it wishes to take government. In our time, this means that it must be transparent about its major objectives, and I want to suggest that a constitutional transformation of the nature of government, and not any airy-fairy notion of putting so-called “good” people to run the same old structures, is a minimum requirement if our wish is to break the cycle of poverty.
On a related issue, during the budget debate of 1958, the PPP government was accused of unscrupulous and discriminatory behaviour and Balram Singh Rai was reported as saying that: “… members of the opposition should be more responsible and should not indulge in generalization without evidence to back what they said” (Daily Chronicle, 30.6.58). This mantra about the need for evidence has echoed throughout the decades; during the PNC regime and even today. What those who make these requests fail to grasp is that racial attitudes, and particularly current racial attitudes, are only one of the causes of polarization. Maybe it is best to view our major political parties as ethnic defence arrangements which their members support even though they have grave concerns about their operations. Please note that a major criticism of Mr Robert Corbin’s leadership of the PNCR is that he has not been sufficiently vigorous in radically defending his constituency. It follows that even at this simmering level of hostility one cannot achieve peace and thus development by asking one side to abandon or give over its defences to the other side! If the leaders cannot find a cooperative framework, hostility will continue regardless of how essentially peaceful one may think the people are. It is this very feature that makes any attempt at a “citizens initiative” that marginalizes major political parties very problematical and perhaps, even adventuristic.
I believe that Mr Trotman was correct in drawing to our attention some of the dynamics of the partnership discourse within the AFC. He and his supporters should take heart; history is certainly not against them.
Yours faithfully,
Henry B Jeffrey
