The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland and a largely governance team recently visited Guyana to have discussions with the government, opposition, Guyana Elections Commission, etc. Surprisingly, what I gather from the media coverage is that her discourse with the government had largely to do with the position her organisation took during the still-disputed 2020 general elections in Guyana. Here, however, I […]
Future Notes
‘1. Winner-take-all A major underlying source of instability in the Guyana electoral system is a winner-take-all character that heightens ethnic insecurities and intensifies ethnic struggle for control of state power. Under this system, the governing party is in a position of unchallenged power even when, as has occurred in recent election cycles, its margin of victory is as slim as […]
The focus here is upon the largely imprudent comments made by the new leader of the People’s National Congress, Mr. Aubrey Norton, in the relation to the Private Sector Commission (PSC). However, I recently detected in the mainstream media what appears to be an effort by mainly PPP operatives to undermine African political confidence by consistently harping upon the fact […]
Congratulations to Mr. Aubrey Norton for decisively winning the PNCR leadership contest by, together with his team, conducting a well-crafted campaign that focused on the main concerns and requirements of his constituency and Guyana today. The PNC continues to be the country’s most democratic political party: gone are the days when a few apparatchiks conferenced among themselves and determined who […]
No Guyanese could be surprised at the quarrel that broke out between the government and the opposition about the appointment of the new chief executive officer (CEO) of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), Mr. Vishnu Persaud. In a letter to the press, Mr. Vincent Alexander, one of its PNC-orientated Commissioners, made a case that ‘GECOM failed in its responsibility to […]
‘’The concept of “ethnic blindness” can be somewhat equated with “color-blindness”. ‘The theory of color-blindness proposes that racial categories…. racial group membership and race-based differences should not be taken into account when decisions are made, impressions are formed and behaviors are enacted.’ This concept of Romitesh Kant explains well the conceptual framework of many of those in Guyana who require […]
I claimed last week that while in the 1950s/60s the PNC and their allies were involved in the global struggle against communism whose objective was to overthrow liberal democracy, the PPP’s relationship with the US in 2020 was motivated by no such principled concern. It was a commonplace desire for personal and/or ethnic political power. Global communism has been destroyed […]
In my last column I argued that to be considered legitimate, governments must result from rules that are the outcome of a highly collaborative and consensual process, and that when one is considering socio/political issues in Guyana, it must be recognised that Guyana is a multiethnic, largely bicommunal, society without a substantial united public political opinion. Reforms will, therefore, have […]
Last week, a press statement from the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs and Governance published some draft electoral laws which it said were ‘the first set of amended laws being finalized and circulated for the public and national stakeholders’ viewing’. And the death knell suggested by this formulation elicited a smile. Understanding what consultations ought to be, my concern was not […]
Commenting on the oral presentation of a forthcoming paper ‘The judiciary and the 2020 elections in Guyana’ by political scientists and team leaders of the Caricom recount process for those elections, Professor Cynthia Barrow-Giles and Dr Ronnie Yearwood, a lecturer at the University of the West Indies, the Stabroek News (SN) editorial of 24 October 2021 made a two criticisms […]
