More than ever today there is urgent need for national unity. Cheddi Jagan, Forbes Burnham and even the late president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, claimed that the cock and bull story of Mallet-Provost that was posthumously released and adopted by Venezuela with the support of the United States of America, was a contingency measure to prevent the PPP from succeeding in introducing communism on the mainland of South America. Perhaps because of his own socialist orientation, Burnham did not sit on his laurels and expect the USA to protect Guyana.
To counter the Venezuelan threat, by the early 1970s Guyanese society had become highly militarised, with about 20,000 to 30,000 citizens having some connection to the military or one of the paramilitary organisations, and the international reach of the PNC grew exponentially. Guyana was an early and influential member of the Non-Aligned Movement and was able to prevent Venezuela from gaining membership of the organisation.
At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Conference held in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1975, Burnham was one of the main advocates for a New International Economic Order, but by 1983 he was complaining that ‘The immediate need is for South-South dialogue … there is no advantage to gained from complaining about the unreal, immoral distribution of the world’s wealth.’ Among others, over two dozen Marxist parties and groups were present at the 1981 PNC’s Congress. These ranged from the communist parties of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, and most of Eastern Europe to the Polisario Front, the Solidarity Committee of Chile, the New Jewel Movement of Grenada and the Sandinistas of Nicaragua.
With all the resources at present at its disposal, both internally and externally, in terms of its defence capacities, Guyana is a shadow of its former self, largely because for three decades the PPP government has been unable to devise and execute a coherent national and international vision with which to motivate its people. Instead, its focus has been upon establishing ethnic/political dominance at a period when everywhere the rights of ethnic groups to self-management is being championed.
The result is that while in opposition, the PPP was accommodated by the autocratic PNC regime and was literally compelled by the scope of its reach to offer ‘critical support’. Today, Aubrey Norton, the leader of the PNC, while accepting that national unity is critical at this juncture has sensibly concluded that it is impossible in the context of the political, economical and social suppression and alienation that is the result of the PPP’s policies.
For those who might have any doubt of the need of national unity, here is the dissenting opinion from the judges of three important international players – Xue (China), Bhandari (India), and Nolte (Germany) – on the latest International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision in relation to the Guyana/Venezuela border dispute. The judges agreed that Venezuela must ‘refrain from conducting elections, or preparing to conduct elections, in the territory in dispute’ but they argued ‘that the Court should exercise its power to “specify the scope” of its previous provisional measures only when a change in the situation gives rise to serious doubts as to whether its previous provisional measures are applicable to or sufficient to address the new situation.
They said that in the present circumstances; this is certainly not the case. Therefore, the Court may weaken the authority of its orders and parties may be encouraged to submit repeated requests for the modification of provisional measures. Moreover, the Court should not appear to be engaging in the enforcement of the provisional measures it has indicated, which is not its task, or even prematurely suggesting that those measures have been violated, which it should not do at this stage.’
From Magna Carta, which in 1215 established the principle that governments are subject to the rule of law in England; to ‘Liberty, Equality and Fraternity’ of the 17th century French Revolution to Karl Marx’s mid-19th century notion that democracy is the social expression of freedom, I opine that the global democratisation so society might be obstructed but cannot be reversed. Autocracy will perennially face substantial resistance, and in the context of Guyana, democratisation and national unity will only materialise when there is shared governance. In this framework I put to you the position of one of the new entrants into the political arena.
À la Sir. Arthur Lewis, Mr. Dorwain Bess, the founder of V-Pac, argues that ‘In countries like Guyana, elections are often decided by the slimmest of margins, sometimes a single seat or a few thousand votes. The result? Nearly half the nation is left feeling unrepresented, as if governance only extends to those who backed the winning party. Whether it’s the PPP or the PNC, this dynamic leaves large portions of our population politically abandoned.’
His group is canvassing ‘a bold and transformative shift to a system of elected shared governance, a model rooted in electoral legitimacy, institutional balance, and national inclusion. We reject the cycle of exclusion that has repeatedly unfolded under the guise of democracy. Shared governance will end this cycle, ensuring that every Guyanese, regardless of who they voted for-has a voice at the table and leadership that serves the whole country’ (V-PAC demands end to winner-takes-all politics in Guyana This status quo continues to drain our nation of opportunity, trust, and progress.’ (VV. 15/05/2025).
Since the early 1960s, it was established that a form of shared governance was the only answer for the proper democratic governance of the kind of multiethnic countries such as Guyana that contain two large ethnic groups weened in political hostility towards each other. Democracy prioritises both majority and minority rights and in Guyana shared governance is not an option. After all, with all its abundance of resources, reasonably sensible people and now real money in literally in the hands of our governments, look where Guyana is today.
It cannot possibly be stupidity: it must be the deliberate political manoeuvrings and incompetence of the existing autocracy that is so clearly evidenced in its inability to convince a simple family that it is acting fairly in dealing with the death of their eleven-year-old child. As if it is a routine matter that children frequently die in circumstances such as Adrianna Younge did, the regime now seeks bureaucratic refuge in some concern it has of creating a precedent if it succumbs to the investigatory request of her grieving parents.
The question is how conceptually Mr. Bess’s intention is to organised and how does he intend to accomplish shared governance. I am not unaware of the difficulties with Mr. Bess’s conceptualisation. For example, by his model the ‘presidency will remain with the party that wins the plurality of votes in a general election. … Key decision-making authority, over constitutional appointments, budgets, resource management, and national security, will be transferred to a National Governance Council.
This constitutionally established body will include representatives from both major parties, civil society, indigenous leaders, and technocrats. The president will serve as chair but be bound by the Council’s majority decisions. … We will also implement proportional representation at the Cabinet level, so all major political factions share in governance. No single party will shape policy alone. Government will reflect Guyana’s full diversity, regionally, ethnically, and ideologically.’
Presidencies are usually the result of majoritarian or super majoritarian models. On a plurality model, such as we have in Guyana, one can win the presidency with, say, 20% of the votes and still wield a significant amount of authority over the entire country. What is the relationship between the National Governance Council and the Cabinet and how is the former to be elected or appointed, who will chair the latter and why are both needed? Will most of what Mr. Bess is trying to achieve in terms of participation and transparency not result from a super majoritarian presidency such as in Suriname?
Constitutional reforms were attempted at the turn the century, but we still have the winner-takes-all system because the opposition did not properly understand the implications of its context then or during its recently concluded term in government. One must only hope that it has learnt the lesson.
