Dear Editor,
The ongoing recount process at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre has been couched as a battle between the incumbent APNU+AFC coalition, and the opposition PPP/Civic coalition. Third parties have been framed as either guardians of the democratic will of the majority looking for change, or agent provocateurs of the opposition, depending on the point of view. Battle lines are being drawn between not just parties but the ethnic groups that dominate the support of the main parties in these coalitions, the PNC and the PPP. This scenario seems to mirror similar battles that have been occurring in the elections in Guyana since before independence.
In reality however the situation is far more complex and heterogenous than this simple two-way battle for power between ethnic groups and their related parties. There is, and always has been, a third force at play in Guyana’s society and elections, a group comprising minority and mixed ethnicities, and members of the two ethnic groups that have become disillusioned with this ‘winner-takes-all’ battle. This third group has been instrumental throughout Guyana’s history in determining elections, and forming third parties, that have all too often been swallowed up in the duopoly of the PPP and the PNC – largely because of the inadequacies of the constitutional and electoral systems in the country.
In a forthcoming paper we use data on population and voting patterns in Guyana to examine how important this ‘third force’ is, and has been – and draw recommendations for much needed changes in the constitutional and electoral systems, to move power away from this two-way battle, towards a system that can better reflect the varied make-up of Guyana’s society and political beliefs.
Examination of population data shows a pattern of a stagnating and aging population, caused by waves of out-migration. This is however, contrasted by a pattern of growing registered voters, and growing voter activity across elections, with the most dramatic increases occurring in the last three elections – especially in hinterland areas. Although the population as a whole has stagnated two crucial groups have grown dramatically: mixed ethnicity and Amerindians, at the expense of the two main ethnic groups, especially east Indians.
It is our hypothesis that these growing communities often form a class of ‘floating voters’ – moving between the two dominant coalitions, or forming third parties that have been a crucial part of Guyana’s political environment since the 1950s. We isolate the size of this ‘floating voter’ set in recent years and show that capturing (and losing) this vote was crucial to the election success (or otherwise) of especially the PNC but also the PPP.
By conducting a polling station level analysis between publicly available data on the 2015 and 2020 elections we show that a swing from APNU+AFC to PPP/C in ‘mixed polling stations’ – those in which neither of the two forces dominate – could have played a critical role in determining this election. Our analysis highlights that it is this third electoral force that often unknowingly wields the power in Guyana’s elections – yet are excluded from the institutional structures at GECOM, are marginalised in an ethnic winner-takes-all battle between the main two political parties, and are largely under-represented in the political dialogue that emerges from elections.
Urgent electoral, and constitutional reform, is therefore required, not just to deal with the aftermath of the chaos of the 2020 elections (whatever the final result may be), but also to deal with this missing element in the electoral mix.
Yours faithfully,
Rory Fraser and Timoth Laing
