The oligarchy of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has spent the last 25 of its 30 years in government depressing the democratic hopes that resulted from the fall of Soviet Marxism and the return to free and fair elections by strangulating the democratic rights of minority groups and more particularly suppressing and impoverishing the African people with the single aim of establishing ethnic political dominance in Guyana.
The point has been reached where Transparency International has accused it and its associates of capturing and manipulating the state and it is officially designated as being on the downward slope to dictatorship by the V-Democracy Index. Serious political reforms are required at almost every level of governance if the regional and national elections that the party has now, apparently quite hurriedly, scheduled for 1st September 2025 is to reverse the autocratic trajectory and Guyana take its place among the democratic countries of the Caribbean and beyond.
The recent announcement by the British government that it has reached agreement with the Guyana government to ‘contribute to efforts that support Guyana’s electoral processes in line with international best practices. … [and] strengthen institutions and promote good governance’ was, therefore, most comforting.
After all, the West was very much part of the process and the debacle that occurred during the 2020 elections and made some recommendations, important ones of which are yet to be implemented. One must hope that the apparent haste to call new elections is not intended to truncate this process. The priority must be to hold the kind of elections that can terminate Guyana’s slide towards dictatorship and provide the foundation for the development of an inclusive and prosperous democratic society.
Citizens have been voting for public officials long before the birth of Christ and as the eminent political theorist the late Samuel P Huntington argued, elections in themselves, even when free and fair, do not necessarily result in good governance. Governments produced by elections ‘may be inefficient, corrupt, shortsighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good.’
Therefore, the liberal democratic system after which Guyanese hanker must be based on a strong separation of powers, open, free and fair elections, effective citizen control over policies, responsible government, honesty and openness in politics, informed and rational deliberation, equal and inclusive participation and power, etc.
What this means in practice is that multiparty elections for the executive must be conducted by an independent/objective elections management body, there must be a consensually agreed upon satisfactory degrees of suffrage, freedom of expression, freedom of association, accountable campaign financing, judicial and legislative constraints on the executive, the protection of civil liberties and equality before the law, and citizens should be subjected only to laws established for the good of the community.
Most of the above is foreign to Guyana. The separation of powers does not exist, independence of the judiciary is weak, police administration is in disarray, etc. International best practises suggest that setting the date for genuinely democratic elections should be consensual but the main opposition party is up in arms about the autocratic way the date for the 2025 elections has been set.
One of its spokesperson on the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) insisted that the opposition was not properly consulted and that if ‘GECOM was not responsive to its constitutional mandate and concerns regarding biased staff, non-adherence to legal provisions, unrectified voters’ lists, and the exclusion of the duly constituted commission from decision-making are not addressed, the upcoming elections will simply be an unacceptable, illegitimate and undemocratic process.” (‘Three GECOM commissioners say revised election workplan doesn’t match Sept 1st date,’ SN: 28/08/2025).
Of course, the Opposition spokesperson was being extremely charitable as the activities of the PPP over the last two decades have long made elections in Guyana undemocratic and illegitimate. So it was welcoming to hear that the government of the United Kingdom (UK), in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), is supporting GECOM to enhance institutional capacity and strengthen electoral processes ahead of the 2025 General and Regional Elections in Guyana.
The key objectives of the project are: 1. Technical Support for 2025 Elections: Deployment of senior international electoral experts, who will be based within GECOM, to provide technical advice and support to strengthen processes such as communications, operations and logistics, etc., for the preparation, management, and conduct of the elections. 2. Capacity Building: Institutional strengthening of GECOM’s operational systems, human resources, and technical capacity for sustainable electoral administration.
3. Improved Communications and Stakeholder Engagement: Enhancing public information strategies and fostering more inclusive engagement among electoral stakeholders to promote transparency and trust. (‘GECOM gets support to boost institutional capacity, strengthen electoral processes,’ Newsroom, 09/05/2025).
The PPP is an autocratic construct that is not interested in fostering and promoting inclusiveness and transparency in any aspect of public management. But added to this, on 24th May 2025, Mr. Greg Quinn, former British High Commissioner to Guyana, writing in the Stabroek News in support of the 1998 Northern Ireland Good Friday Agreement and power-sharing arrangement, claimed that there is much that Guyana could learn from that experience. But what is required ‘is commitment from all political leaders to work together for the benefit of the people of Guyana. To put to one side old enmities and do what is best for Guyana. Only when they do that will the old issues of the past largely be put to one side. And everyone can move on and focus on what is important – economic and social well-being’ (‘The Belfast Good Friday Agreement and the importance of reconciliation – a lesson for Guyana?,’ SN: 24/05/2025).
The possible linkage of these two events must have caused apoplexy among the oligarchs, for apparently two days later as President Alli was announcing the date for the 2025 national and regional elections he stumbled and mistakenly announced it as 1st December. The issue of good governance has plagued Guyana for almost three-quarters of a century, largely because for some time the political elite was ignorant of the negative structural nature of its ethnic/political context. Today that knowledge is widespread but in relation to the PPP the racism that helped to sustain its actual existence is at present being used by its oligarchs that have deliberately taken the autocratic alternative to Guyana’s development.
The hastily called elections appear an effort to stymie any possibility of the British intervention leading to real democratic outcomes. The PPP may have also calculated that the current ideological stance of the United States administration and its frosty relationship with Europe, not to mention the government’s new consultant arrangements in the US, will play to its advantage. Let’s hope not: but if it does it constitutes the most important reason the PPP should be punished at the polls.
