Former President of Suriname Desi Bouterse commented recently that unlike Guyana, Suriname did not have a ‘winner-take-all’ political system. Among other things, he said that the president there was elected by the National Assembly. Where that is concerned it might be noted that in the period between 1970 and 1980, Guyana’s president was also elected by Parliament, although admittedly Arthur Chung who occupied that post for a decade was not an executive president.
More important, however, is the fact that Suriname has a greater number of ethnic groups than does this country, and nearly all of them have an associated political party. Since there is no single group which has sufficient numerical superiority to form a government on its own, all administrations which come to office in Paramaribo are coalitions. It should be said too that the leader of the largest party in a governing coalition will invariably be voted into office as head of state, which in the end perhaps makes it not so very different from what obtains here.
In the most important respect, however, what distinguishes the Suriname system from the Guyana one is not the absence of a ‘winner-take-all’ structure, since once in office a government has similar latitude to its counterpart in Georgetown, but demography. The existence of a number of small and medium-sized ethnic/political groups requires that the larger ones negotiate with one or more of the others if they are to have any hope of getting into government, and while such arrangements sometimes last for two terms, the electorate regularly votes incumbents out of office. Political fragmentation, therefore, is what produces a different outcome to the one with which we are familiar here.
When people in Guyana talk of inclusivity or shared governance they have only two ethnic groups and more especially two political parties in mind: the PPP and the PNC, in its various incarnations. Various LAPOP surveys on political preferences have confirmed that which none of us needs to be told, namely, that there is a very close correlation between ethnicity and voting habits. However, over the years the two largest parties have seen their ethnic bases shrink, so that in the last census of 2012, the African population had declined to 29.2% of the total and the Indian one to 39.8%. Both, therefore, need considerable assistance from other groups if they are to win an election.
Unlike Suriname, there are no politically organised ‘other groups’ at the moment which are sufficiently strong to exercise some clout in the political arena. There was a mushrooming of small parties prior to the March 2nd election, but with one arguable exception, they were not ethnically based. For the most part their message was one of constitutional change, but they performed very poorly, a joinder of three of them securing only one seat. What has been happening over the last few elections is that both major parties have been attracting votes from other unorganised groups to make up their numbers. They should not assume, however, that this situation will endure indefinitely to allow them the extended sojourn in office which they all believe will follow the oil bonanza.
While the numbers of Indians and Africans are on the decline, the Indigenous population along with that of Mixed race people is on the increase. The problem with the Mixed race group is that it is not homogeneous; in fact, no one is altogether certain how it is comprised, although perhaps some extrapolations can be made from the census figures for the regions in conjunction with the voting results. Since with one exception, the PNCR always obtained 40-42% of the ballot in the era of free and fair elections, it has been presumed that the Mixed race vote made this possible.
The figures might lend this support. According to the 2012 census the highest proportion of Mixed race people can be found in Region 7, where they account for 40.9% of the inhabitants, followed by Region 10 at 39.6%. APNU+AFC won the latter region overwhelmingly in the last election, and they also won in Region 7. Where the last named region, a major mining area, is concerned, it is very likely that many, if not most of the Mixed race group is part Indigenous, and a significant number will also be part African, since members of that ethnic category have been involved in mining almost from the beginning. This would account for the APNU/PNC vote there. Surprisingly, perhaps, pure Indigenous only account for 37.2% of the population in the region.
In the case of Region 10, the vast majority will be part African, the other components possibly accounting for a variety of races, including white – for the older generation when the Canadians worked there – or perhaps Indigenous too, where children have been brought back by their parents from mining districts. Whatever their genetic heritage, it is clear they identify with the Africans. Except for Indigenous regions such as 1, 8, and 9, they have only a very minor presence in other areas and it is impossible to say from exactly which groups they are descended.
The long and the short of this is that they will never be a distinct ethnic category, unlike the Indigenous people who many decades ago were represented by Stephen Campbell. Both the major parties need the Indigenous vote, which is split between them, although in the last election, judging from the regional count, the government seems to have received the larger share. In 2012 the Indigenous population was recorded at 10.5%, so potentially, therefore, they could if they wanted, hold the balance of power.
The problem is that they fall into nine nations, each with its own language which are not mutually intelligible, Akawaio and Patamona arguably excepted. (In the case of the coastal Indigenous, particularly the Arawaks, a serious erosion of the linguistic heritage has taken place.) There has been no one since Stephen Campbell who could unite them politically, although GAP enjoyed a brief heyday in Region 9 a while back.
The approach of the PPP/C has always been to control the Indigenous communities, partly through the agency of the National Toshaos Council as well as specially appointed community workers, among other things. The Indigenous, however, are much more aware of coastal politics than was once the case, more especially as the NTC under the last government began to exercise a bit of independence. As they become politically more aware, and perhaps convey their dissent to the abrasive Minister Pauline Sukhai, the governing party might find the Indigenous altogether less accommodating.
And now of course there is an Indigenous party in the form of the LJP, led by a man who has a public profile. It did not do well on March 2nd, earning its best results in Regions 7 and 4, hardly leading Indigenous districts. However, while things change slowly sometimes, they do change, and the PPP/C may find that a combination of control and buying off pliant communities is not enough. The emergence of an Indigenous party would change the political equation here, and bring us to a position nearer to that of Suriname, where coalitions are the order of the day.
That trend will be enhanced if young people in the urban areas are seeking something more progressive and innovative than what the two old warhorses have to offer. It is true that the small parties did not do well, and the best showing for ANUG, CG and TCI, the three most successful – the LJP apart – was in Region 4. However, that may be partly a reflection of disappointment with the performance of the AFC, and if the oil economy attracts back citizens accustomed to a more modern mode of operating, the cumbersome political approach of the PPP/C and the opposition will no longer be acceptable.
The government should have already noted that its majority is very small. It is a sign of things to come. And for everyone it is a sign that our demographics are undergoing change, and the constitutional changes we are envisaging should take that into account.
