‘What is to be feared is not so much the immorality of the great as the fact that immorality may lead to greatness. In a democracy, private citizens see a man of their own rank in life who rises from that obscure position in a few years to riches and power; the spectacle excites their surprise and envy, and they are led to inquire how a person who was yesterday their equal today is their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his virtues is unpleasant, for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they are themselves less virtuous or less talented than he was. They are therefore led, and often rightly, to impute his success mainly to some of his vices; and an odious connection is thus formed between the ideas of turpitude and power, unworthiness and success, utility and dishonour.’ (Alexis de Tocqueville (1835) ‘Democracy in America,’ Vol. 1, Vintage, New York).
This kind of ‘odious connection’ is widespread in Guyana as is de Tocqueville’s other observation that ‘There is corruption on the part of the candidate who pays for the votes of the voter’. Generally, today corruption is considered a major cause of underdevelopment and autocratic governance, and Guyana’s historical problematical ethnic political environment provides fertile ground for it to flourish. Two large minority ethnic groups and their political parties now dominate the political scene and no constitutional or other reform efforts have thus far succeeded in devising a political system that adequately reconciles majority rule and minority rights. There exists a stultifying winner-takes-all governance arrangement and the most marginal, usually manufactured, majoritarian victory results in unilateral autocratic ethnic rule.
Transparency International (IT) defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain, and it is to be found in both the public and private sectors. As in Guyana, the abuse of public power is not necessarily only for one’s private benefit but may also be for the benefit of one’s party , class, race, friends, family, etc.
For some time, corruption has been considered one of the biggest threats to humanity because it distorts economic growth, lowers foreign direct investment, and decreases productivity at the level of the firm due to inefficient allocations of contracts. It is said to also lead to the reduction of voluntary contributions, increase inequality, facilitate brain drain and create inefficiencies in the sports sector. As noted by de Tocqueville, research now indicates that corruption undermines a community’s public perception, triggers an atrophy of general and political trust, provides an incubator for general crime, dilutes societal norms and values, and distorts both competition and innovation. (The Nature of Corruption: An Interdisciplinary Perspective.bEugen Dimant & Thorben Schulte published online by Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2024 reinforces the above scenario by arguing that ‘Corruption is an evolving global threat that does far more than undermine development – it is a key cause of declining democracy, instability and human rights violations. The international community and every nation must make tackling corruption a top and long-term priority. This is crucial to pushing back against authoritarianism and securing a peaceful, free and sustainable world.’
Using associated indices, the 2024 Index downgraded and severely criticised Guyana’s performance. ‘In 2012 Guyana was only awarded 28 of the available 100 points and was still below 30 points when the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) lost government in 2015. By the time the APNU+AFC coalition was removed from government in 2020 Guyana position on the Index was improved to 41 points only to again join the downward trajectory under the incoming PPP government: gaining 39 points in 2024. Guyana now ranks 92 out of 180 countries but as was pointed out ‘A country’s rank is its position relative to the other countries in the index. Ranks can change merely if the number of countries included in the index changes. The rank is therefore not as important as the score in terms of indicating the level of corruption in that country.’
Furthermore, facilitating the odious connection identified by de Tocqueville, the 2024 Report observed that ‘In Guyana (39) state captured by economic and political elites has led to resource misappropriation, illicit enrichment and environmental crimes.’ Interestingly, the report indicated that ‘[A]lthough the country has created anti-corruption institutions and laws, transparency and law enforcement are very low, and attacks on dissenting voices, activists and journalists increasingly common (KN: Feb 13, 2025). It also referenced ‘Insight Crime’ to the effect that ‘Despite constitutional guarantees of an independent judiciary, the judiciary has been adversely affected by the ethnically based political divisions in the country. Since 1980, both the PPP and PNC have used their mandates to pack the courts, and the judiciary has difficulty serving as an effective check on the executive or the legislature.’
On passing, after the publication of the 2012 Corruption Perception Index the Kaieteur News headlined Guyana as the most corrupt country in the English-speaking Caribbean: a situation that it was in since its first inclusion in the Index in about 2005. The PPP began quarrelling about perceptions not being empirical and has not stopped since: ‘President takes issue with Transparency International’s findings on Guyana,’ (SN: 14/02/2024). This is even though the Index has become most authoritative and a 2006 World Bank paper, ‘Measuring Corruption: Myths and Realities,’ debunk half a dozen PPP-type myths and concluded that ‘Over the past decade measuring corruption has become an ever-growing empirical field!’
Importantly, the 2024 Index noted that being able to hold government accountable is essential to the fight against corruption and while what the report observed is important, it focused on only one aspect of the problem in Guyana and is based essentially on class analysis. In Guyana, the political and business elites and their associates are overwhelmingly of the same ethnicity and are complicit in using the state to establish political/ethnic dominance. Therefore, a simple class analysis is as inappropriate as is the winner-takes-all Westminster type system that facilitates its rule. In other words, for nearly three decades, an ethnic party – the PPP – has been using the profligate discretionary powers of the Westminster-type political arrangements to transfer power and wealth to its ethnic associates.
In a homogeneous society, a class analysis would leave substantial scope for holding government accountable as significant public opinion usually shifts from issue to issue, but even then other social divisions must be considered. This was a central concern of the constitutional drafters since the Americans invented the written constitution nearly 250 years ago. As one of the drafters, James Madison, noted ‘[T]hese worries have influenced in a decisive way the design of the checks and balances that have been built in the American constitution, and that try to secure exactly this delicate balance between the establishment of a democracy, that is a system that advances the will of the majority, the ability to form a strong government that will be able to take decisions and, last but definitely not least, protect the rights of the various minorities’ (file:///C:/Users/henry/Downloads/ssrn-1018827.pdf).
There is no or very little such shift of public opinion to properly hold governments accountable in ethnically largely bicommunal society such as Guyana where the two major parties are substantial minorities. The question then is how to create a governance mechanism that prevents the current abuse of minority rights.
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This article was first published under the headline ‘Ethnicity, corruption and governance’ on February 15, 2025
