On his demotion by Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton as shadow minister for culture, youth and sports in January 2024 and his unsuccessful request that the decision be reversed, I began to pay some attention to the writings of Mr. Jermaine Figueira and detected a lightness with deception and an astonishing absence of context (SN:19/07/2025).  Then, Mr. Ravi Dev wrote a piece on Forbes Burnham’s autocratic rule, and since autocracies are quite unusual in the British Caribbean, he seemed to avoid arguably the most salient question: why? (SN: 20/07/2025)  The answer to would have required some relatively heavy contextualization but instead he slid into the usual sterile propagandistic mode of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
No one should blindly follow racism, Mr. Figueira claimed, without dealing with the fact that the party to which he has now given his support has been the first mass party to mobilize by race and to this day continues to be the most vigilant in its use, with dire consequences for the other ethnic groups. One should not do anything ‘blindly’ but fighting for one’s ethnic right in Guyana under the PPP is not blindness: what is blindness is the archaic assimilationist suggestions that litter his writing without any in depth consideration of the historical and immediate context. Not to be repetitive ,what is said here will be relevant to the comments on Ravi Dev that follow.
Over the last 25 years, the policy of the PPP has been set upon political dominance, which in the ethnic context of Guyana requires African suppression. Examples are the PPP’s deliberate destruction the Bauxite workers pension fund that had stood as the largest fund owned by Africans and if it had been allowed to properly develop would have done so much for the community Figueira purports to love. The PPP’s phantom squad was involved in the extra judicial killing of hundreds – largely Africans and public servants – mainly Africans – have been robbed of literally billions of dollars in the PPP’s attempt to drive them into poverty and politically exploit them.
A stroll in Georgetown will show the deliberate destruction wrought by the PPP over decades. The PPP deliberately destroyed the technical and vocational education infrastructure the African villages depended upon to grow new technicians and craftspersons. Its discrimination in the distribution of national positions, contracts and the general wealth of the country has become legendary. If the above was idle chatter it would have long ago done an independent ethnic disparity analysis to demonstrate the falsity of the accusations.
Mr. Figueira, from the standpoint of democratic governance and management, the PPP has been a disaster. The all-important separation of powers has been dead for two decades, the police force is in total disarray, the growing economy the PPP received from Desmond Hoyte in 1992 was in shambles by the year 2000, the Skeldon estate project proved to be a white elephant and the gas to energy project appears to be going the same way.
Guyana must be one of the few countries claiming to be democratic in which a government would call general elections without the populace having a reasonably objective view about the actual size and nature of the population because the state finds it difficult complete a national census. And let us not forget the information commissioner who appears to have been appointed not to give information.
But what must be the pinnacle of absurdity is Mr. Figueira’s claim that he is committed to inclusion and still finds it sensible to support the PPP. Without any success, for decades, the Carter Center and numerous other bodies, including the US government, have been demanding that the PPP be inclusive, but it has instead become even more exclusive. So much so that in 2025 V-Democracy, perhaps the worlds must detailed political index, has classified Guyana as nearing a dictatorship and Transparency International has accused the PPP and its supporters of capturing the Guyanese state and using it as they please.
But it is all a mere deception. Mr. Figueira ended his resignation statement by trying to suggest that he acted unselfishly in giving his support to the PPP, but in the same paragraph proceeded to indicate that he expected everything. ‘I wish to state that the timing of this statement is not an accident. I waited until the nomination list of candidates was presented because this decision, which I have made, is purely to be in service to my community and people.
I asked no favors for my decision to support the reelection of President Irfaan Ali to the office of the president. I offer only service to his new government when reelected and to my community and country to which I am totally committed’ (op. cit). Note, he wants us to believe that by not going on the PPP’s list he made a sacrifice when not being on the list has little to do with whether he could become a minister of government and ipso facto a parliamentarian.
After claiming that in campaigning, Dr. David Hinds indicated that the APNU/WPA coalition intends to fulfill the mandate of Forbes Burnham, in his letter ‘Ramcharan ignored our own experience with PNC totalitarianism’, Ravi Dev outlined the usual negative characteristics of autocratic rule, ending his letter: ‘Will the present PNC leadership fulfil this legacy’ (op. cit).  Of course, the negative characteristics he outlined are better likened to the modus operandi of autocratic rule, and as noted above, this is precisely what Guyanese have also been living under for 25 of the PPP’s 30 years in government.
Around the world, autocrats, most of them these days counterfeit democrats such as in Guyana, are aplenty: in Venezuela, Russia, China, Singapore, Burkina Faso, etc., and in some cases, such regimes do cultivate significant material development. But as is at present the case in Guyana, on almost every occasion autocrats routinely attempt to present these material accomplishments as sufficient reason for their existence. Â Indeed, this is the legacy to which David Hinds must have referred, but it does not make dictators/autocrats of whatever sort desirable or good. Karl Marx recognized this over 150 years ago: free, open and inclusive democratic arrangements in the social setting is human freedom.
Added to all that has been said before, talking about legacy, Mr. Dev, that of the PPP is nothing to write home about. This column has repeatedly referenced Forbes Burnham as an autocrat, but like the Venezuela border problem his was a dictatorship brought upon Guyana by the PPP’s determination to use its ethnic base and notions of free and fair elections to upend liberal democracy in Guyana, the Caribbean and the world at large. The one time that democracy defined as majority rule is bad is when it is intended to be used to end liberal democracy, and ending the latter was precisely what Soviet/Stalinist communism, to which the PPP gave its written allegiance, was set upon.
The Jagans were determined to ??? because the British colonialists and their allies tried everything to accommodate and finally to dislodge the PPP from government. They suspended the Constitution and told Cheddi in no uncertain terms that they intended to remove him from the government. Â Much as is happening today, the imperialists then resorted to gerrymandering, buying votes, offering the PPP shared governance – which Forbes Burnham accepted but the PPP rejected – and finally decided to change the Constitution, introduce proportional representation and organise the PNC/United Force Coalition that ousted the PPP from government for three decades. Indeed, since Forbes Burnham was a closet radical Marxist himself, they were not certain the coalition would suffice and so concocted the Venezuela border dispute.
Cheddi Jagan knew all of this but claimed that the early period was the result of ‘youthful exuberance’. It certainly was, but the result has been three quarters of a century of autocratic rule with the loss of numerous lives, much property and enormous opportunities. Then as now, the PPP’s determination to cultivate and use its ethnic group was unnecessary, and if it is allowed to continue its traditional behaviour, disaster beckons!
