Dear Editor,
With the LGE over and the numbers crunched, analyses have been undertaken on what they indicate about our greatest political conundrum – ethnic voting. Some say that they can discern for the very first time, evidence of a critical mass of African Guyanese voters crossing the old ethnic line of cleavage and voting for the PPP that has been traditionally associated with Indian Guyanese. This, of course, has been the holy grail of the PPP which its charismatic leader Cheddi Jagan had pursued since Forbes Burnham split the ethnic condominium that was the 1953 PPP. Even though Fenton Ramsahoye remarked that “the party moves in mysterious ways” after Jagan intervened to ensure Brindley Benn be elected as PPP’s chairman in 1962, there was actually nothing mysterious about Jagan’s signal that his party was a home for African Guyanese also.
The PNC’s subsequent rigging of elections until 1992 made the question of cross-ethnic support moot but its policies solidified Indian Guyanese conviction that it was an African Guyanese party. For the 1992 “free and fair” elections, Hoyte’s CREEP initiative and the PPP’s Civic appendage signaled their desire to be seen as “multiracial”. However, the PNC’s gaining the same percentage of votes as it had done in the riot-polarized 1964 elections indicated that African Guyanese still identified with it as “their party” even though they had a choice in the WPA. Indian Guyanese returned to the PPP, which they felt had been unfairly excluded for 28 years. The subsequent PNC-inspired riots only solidified the ethnic status quo.
But as we have been pointing out for over a decade, by 2010 our changing demographics had created a polity with no single ethnic majority. As such, rational choice theory suggested that the PPP and PNC should now concretely pursue the “politics of accommodation” to attract cross-over votes since, if successful, either of them could win elections. In a bold move, the PNC transmuted into APNU and in the 2011 elections, they, along with the AFC, reduced the PPP to a plurality and in 2015 to a minority. The Rubicon of ethnic voting was crossed in 2015, when enough Indian Guyanese voted for the AFC, which had coalesced with PNC/APNU. It was Granger who chased them away when he cuckolded Nagamootoo on the promised “enhanced” Prime Ministership and then kicked them in the groin by firing 7000 mostly Indian sugar workers.
In 2020, the PPP had to have received enough cross-over votes to be elected and they could not have come only from the Amerindian Guyanese bloc but also from African and Mixed Guyanese. The latter were turned off by the blatant PNC/APNU’s attempt to rig the elections. But from a rational standpoint, this was the only way they could have returned to office.
Unlike the PNC/APNU, the PPP evidently understands that to balance the political equation it needs to attract even more cross-over votes since its traditional Indian Guyanese base keeps shrinking due to continued migration. As such, its heightened post-2020 efforts to woo African Guyanese voters in traditional PNC strongholds is completely rational. Questions about whether it was “cost effective” misses the point. In Guyanese politics with our demographics, the PPP has no choice since they do not have the option of rigging elections with the state institutions not reflexively in their corner as with the PNC/APNU. There is the “principle of anticipated reactions”.
As such, the PPP can be satisfied that in this LGE – which traditionally does not garner much attention since central government is seen as the “real” prize – it has created beachheads in PNC/APNU’s enclaves which they must expand for that prize in 2025. Their challenge will be to continue attracting African Guyanese voters while ensuring their Indian and Amerindian supporters do not feel neglected. Much then depends on ensuring that the benefits of their impressive development plan is equitably distributed ethnically. The dragon of ethnic voting is not going to be slain soon – it goes too deeply to noneconomic imperatives like self-worth etc.. But its dangerous effects can be tamed if the government accepts ethnicity as real in its effects and address its demand of justice for all.
Sincerely,
Ravi Dev
