Long-term demographic changes, particularly within the Indian community, could have a bearing on future elections here, University of Guyana Lecturer Dr Rishee Thakur believes.
Speaking on Friday at the launching of the book Consociationalism and Governance in Guyana Transition, Special Issue (38-39), Thakur said that censuses conducted over the past decades have consistently reflected a declining Indian population. He pointed to the most recent census of 2002, which said that Indians accounted for 43.5% per cent of the population. The census put Africans at 30.8 per cent; Mixed races at 16.7 per cent; Amerindians at 9.2 per cent and all other groups at 0.6 per cent.
Thakur noted that the decrease in the country’s Indian population was not only owing to migration, and pointed to the decrease in the fertility rates of Indian women due to changes in their lifestyle. He said that more Indian women are now seeking fulfilling careers and are getting married later in life.
Pointing to the situation in Region 6 (East Berbice/ Corentyne) Thakur said that based on the demographic changes in the region, the time may come when the region may have to forfeit one of its constituent seats. Thakur suggested too that the time may come when the other major ethnic groups in the region may eventually equal the number of Indians living there. This, he said, may affect voting patterns in the region, in the future threatening the traditional dominance of the PPP there.
Thakur was at the time giving an overview of the book which he edited to a gathering at the Education Lecture Theatre at the University of Guyana. “The text is organized mainly around the idea that the present political formula organized [in accordance with] the Westminster model is no longer plausible,” he said. “All the contributors to the volume, including our political leaders, are of the view that without some form of shared governance we are not going anywhere in a hurry.” The authors of the text, he said, believe that the ethnic differences are still the same and that they are not going away.
A panel discussion featuring representatives from the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) were a feature of the book launching ceremony.
AFC Chairman Khemraj Ramjattan said that “the sharing of power is going to help in the good governance of the country,” noting that the form this “consociationalism” takes would have a bearing as to whether it will happen in the first place. Consociationa-lism is a form of government involving guaranteed group representation, and is often suggested for managing conflict in deeply divided societies. Ramjattan argued that for such a system to succeed locally there must be some amount of trust. “If we start, however, not having a sharing of this power it can lead to political violence.”
Ramjattan contended that the use of “the ballot instead of the bullet” is the way forward, and that with the “one man, one vote practice” there needed to be systems in place to ensure that there is accountability of the elected officials.
Ramjattan said that the present and past administrations “have promoted… the wrong features of democracy” stating that they have “promoted the façade rather than the essential infrastructure.” The essential infrastructure, he said, goes beyond “the one man, one vote scenario” and includes an anti-corruption culture, scrutiny of the government by the citizenry and ministerial accountability.
Regarding the Westminster model, Ramjattan said that there were defects in the system which needed to be worked on. He said that his party’s rotation principle in leadership, where if the party assumes power, the president and prime minister shift offices midway in the 5-year term, is an attempt to cut the maximal leadership culture that has gripped the country. He said that this method may cause the citizenry to focus more on projects rather than a personality.
WPA co-leader Dr Rupert Roopnaraine during his presentation stated that his party was always dedicated to shared governance. He outlined several attempts that the WPA has made over the years to foster a system of shared governance. Underscoring the importance of reforms of the electoral system, Roopnaraine said that in a country like Guyana the Westminster model leads to “majority rule which could turn into racial tyranny.” Roopnaraine also pointed to the continued absence of elections at the local government level saying this removed an important part of governance at the grass-roots level.
