It is simply amazing that the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) has been busy rewarding itself when its primary achievement over the last two and a half decades has been that of taking a country pregnant with democratic and developmental possibilities and transforming it into an autocracy/dictatorship that is impoverishing more and more of its citizens.
A simple Google search reveals that poverty in Guyana is a significant issue, with a reported poverty rate of approximately 48% as of 2023. This threshold is based on the cost of basic food and non-food items necessary for survival. The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has recently reported even higher poverty rates, estimating that 58% of the population lives in poverty.
Thus some 400,000 people, almost half of the population of about 823,000, live in poverty. While the economy has grown extraordinarily this has not translated into widespread poverty reduction. The government has implemented various poverty reduction measures, education grants, housing subsidies, etc. But the effectiveness of these measures is debatable, and many argue that more needs to be done to address the high cost of living.
The level of poverty must be of concern to all Guyanese but more so to those of African ethnicity, who are about 50% of the population and who over decades have been amorally and unlawfully targeted and made poor by the PPP to break their historic political allegiance to the People’s National Congress/A Partnership for National Unity (PNC/APNU). The government’s haphazard cash-grants and most of its other interventions were focused upon buying votes: it defied planning and wealth creations and should immediately be replaced by a predictable type of basic income.
This has not always been so: in about 1993, Cheddi Jagan said ‘My government has time and again expressed concerns over the investments made before the PPP/Civic took office. From various quarters came severe criticisms and accusations that my government is not in favour of foreign investments. I want to repeat that our developing economy needs more investments to come. I also want to repeat that when the investors come, we will ensure that they respect our people, our laws and our environment.’
As a practical example of this approach, when in about 1993/94 there were signs that the management of Omai Gold Mine might have been having qualms about trade union recognition, Cheddi went to its interior site and made it quite clear to a general meeting of the management and workers that trade recognition was non-negotiable. By 2017, the PPP had regressed to a point where for a decade or so it refused to solve a dispute between the Guyana Bauxite and General Workers Union and the Bauxite Company of Guyana.
A central feature of autocratic government almost everywhere is the repression of democratic trade unionism, and Guyana is nos exception. This column believes that a sufficient prima facie case has been made that over decades, among many other things, the PPP has been suppressing and undermining collective bargaining in trade unions, particularly those associated with African people, that would have allowed them to acquire a living wage.
Indeed, the dangerous working conditions under which some workers at present exist is a direct result of the PPP’s suppression and neglect. Thus, I believe that the comparative economic position of Africans has significantly regressed under PPP governments and the opposition should insist that it conducts an ethnic disparity analysis that will, among other things, help to determine the ethnic nature of existing poverty and if necessary, establish policies to undo this historic wrong.
The contradictory relationship between the PPP policies and democracy is so glaring that it should not detain us. This column has repeatedly indicated that it has this year been demoted to an ‘elected autocracy’ by V-Democracy, the world’s most comprehensive democratic index. Euphemistically, those in opposition have persistently been claiming that the PPP and its families, friends, comrades, acquaintances, fellow travellers, cronies and collaborators have divvied up much of the country’s wealth.
This position is bolstered by the recent claim by Transparency International that the political and economic elites have captured the state and are fostering the misappropriation of resources, illicit enrichment and environmental crime. Not so long ago there was a hue and cry that the policy of the PPP is creating an apartheid state in which Africans are being severely discriminated against.
A few weeks ago, the PPP government took umbridge when the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index noticeably reduced its general and specific standings. For example, generally on the Index of some 145 countries in 2020, Denmark was rated number 1 and Guyana 73. In 2025 Guyana had fallen to 80. At specific levels, where constraints on government powers that measure the extent to which, by constitutional and other institutional means the government is bound by law, Guyana moved from 58 to 69.
On the issue of corruption, that covers bribery, misappreciation of public funds, improper influencing public officials, Guyana dropped from 66 to 74. On the extent to which a government shares information, empowers people with tools to hold it accountable, fosters citizen participation, etc. Guyana moved from 84 to 95.
On the issue of fundamental rights that recognizes that a system of law that fails to respect core human rights is at best “rule by law” and does not deserve to be called a rule of law system. Guyana declined from 65 to 75. The above results came after under the Coalition government of 2015 the standings under most of above elements were improved.
Yet the PPP has just been quarrelling with the presenters of the European Union Final Report on Guyana’s recent 2025 elections, which recognised that the regime monopolised the communications sector and refused to declare that the elections were free. (‘President lambastes EU observers report’ SN: 20/11/2025). The regime’s policies are so contradictory to any claim that it is democratic that a few of its fellow travellers appear to be suggesting that it gives up any claim to its being a liberal democracy and look elsewhere for models of governance!
Over the last three decades, ‘a day hardly pass’ when there has not been advice coming from the media telling Guyanese what we should do to rid ourselves of our political dilemma. What most of these advisors seem not to understand is that the problem is that ‘there is no we’. ‘There is not a vibrant and sizeable civil society that can contribute to national reconciliation, …. Consequently, there is no cohesive public pressure for substantive political or electoral reform stemming from the political crisis. International pressure on the two parties for better governance practices is not breaking the stalemate’ (The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) ‘Democracy, Human Rights and Governance (DRG) Assessment of Guyana’. August 2021).
The entire world has seen that the PPP has brought Guyana to its democratic knees yet the vast majority of Indian Guyanese, who make up a substantial part of the population and have been the party’s core supporters for decades, continues to support it. Of course, over decades the PPP has tried everything, to win or compel substantial African support to no avail.
What this means is that under the current constitutional/legal arrangements there is no political ‘we’ to generally or specifically hold governments accountable and thus create a functioning democracy. As an example, Guyana does not have a constitutional/legal establishment with the kind of checks and balances that can enable what the political system of the United States is at present facilitating against President Donald Trump.
