Guyana’s Petro-State Reality Demands Political Reform

Dear Editor,

Guyana is at a critical “crossroads.” Longstanding political, economic, social, and cultural challenges are now converging with new pressures, creating a potentially explosive situation. dangerous ticking time bomb to use a common phrase. This situation needs to be addressed, and a political solution found to avoid disaster. Unless thse issues are addressed through meaningful political reform and dialogue, the country risks moving toward a period of deep instability. A viable political solution is therefore essential to avert disaster.

A petro-state, a regime committed to racial/political domination, and the unprecedented speed of the changing realities that are taking place in society, and its implications for the future, are not fully grasped by either the masses or the rulers. This makes the situation high-risk in our multi-racial and politically polarized society. This environment requires an urgent initiative by the African community and its leadership to articulate the parameters of African politics. I urge that it must be a politics of non-domination and rejection of winner-take-all governance, which creates the constitutional and legal cover for domination. The time to act is now, since time is not on our side.

The situation in Guyana has elements of the US in the 1860s, which led to the Civil War. The contradiction derives from developments of the productive forces. Capitalism emerged as the driving force for the future. The old slave mode of production became a hindrance to continued US economic and political development. For the Southern States, the rise of capitalism was an existential threat. The US resolved its problem through civil war. In Guyana, oil has changed the productive forces in profound ways with positive and negative consequences. If not resolved by dialogue and compromise, the situation can lead to major civil unrest.

Unlike the Southern States in the US, our situation is not a struggle to preserve the old order but to deal with the consequences of the new productive forces influencing the country’s development. Oil wealth has sharpened the economic and political competition among the races to an unprecedented level in recent history, except for the tension and violence of the pre-independence riots.

The regime’s handling of the oil revenues and the wealth of the nation in general, and governance of the country, poses an existential threat to the African and Indigenous communities due to exclusion and marginalization. This situation has resulted in widening the inequalities between our communities, which, if left unaddressed, will inevitably force Africans and Indigenous communities to fight to preserve their survival at any cost.

I contend that the present alignment of forces, productive, political, economic, social, and the winner-take-all governance system, rather than promoting national unity, is promoting division and must end if Guyana is to become a society that gives justice and equal development to all its people. It is not a secret that even before oil production, Africans and Indigenous people have found themselves in a position where together they own less than 10% of the nation’s wealth.

Half of the population cannot have a prosperous and competitive existence in that situation. Moreso, given the rate at which oil wealth is widening the economic and social gap between our ethnic communities to the point of an existential threat. Guyana is at the point where the rulers are insensitive to the challenges of our history and are committed to self-interest and political domination in the name of Indian solidarity and see no need to resolve this problem by dialogue.

My advocacy for many years has been that African community politics must be one of non-domination and the end of winner-take-all governance. Given the present reality with oil, and the direction the country is going, I am now more convinced than before of the correctness of this position if we are to avoid the American experience of civil war to resolve contradictions inherent in the transformative effects of the petro-state and the deliberate policy of the rulers to engage in apartheid governance.

As I write, I am conscious that most of the population belongs to a younger generation that may not be familiar with my long involvement in the country’s cultural and political struggles. It would therefore be remiss of me not to acknowledge that history and to assume that readers fully understand the principles that have guided my advocacy, particularly in today’s opportunistic political environment.

My position has remained consistent over the years: African community politics must reject both winner-take-all governance and political domination. is not new: we will not seek to dominate others, nor will we accept domination by any race. We do not seek to dominate others, nor will we accept domination by any race. This principle must remain at the heart of our political struggle. The time has come for the African community to exercise greater influence in the nation’s political life through organized resistance and principled engagement.

What I am about to say is an issue for another letter. There is an urgent need for the African community to resolve its position on the role of street protest in the liberation struggle. Our failure to do so will give the rulers political space to continue their policy of domination.

I close by pointing out that the results of the 2025 elections demonstrate the danger of an over-reliance on party politics to protect and defend our community’s interests. A lot of our people who felt that the APNU can’t win the elections sought “salvation” outside our community and voted for WIN and ended up with an entrenched PPP regime. Party politics has weakened African resistance and created new challenges for our liberation struggle. Ironically, we are told to wait for 2030 and do it all over again.

Yours truly,
Tacuma Ogunseye