Cheddi Jagan returned from studies in the United States to a British Guiana in 1943 that was a cauldron of poverty. The report of the Moyne Commission, which investigated poverty in the region in the 1930s concluded that “for the laboring population, mere subsistence was increasingly problematic.” The report was so explosive that it was […]
Category Archives: PNC
THE MIDDLE CLASS – THE NEW DYNAMIC IN GUYANA’S POLITICS
The basis of Guyana’s political outcomes has remained static for many decades. With deeply entrenched ethnic voting patterns, Indian Guyanese, originally constituting close to 50 percent of the population, would always have the upper hand. The two elections in 1957 and 1961 demonstrated to the African Guyanese political leadership that if it wanted political power, […]
GUYANA NEEDS A NEW POLITICAL PARTY
There are frequent, frustrated, refrains from observers that it is Guyana’s political parties that are mainly responsible for promoting the culture of ethnic dominance and without it, Guyana’s politics would not be dominated by race and instability. This is not true. Guyana’s main political parties reflect the social, economic and political aspirations of the people […]
SUSTAINING AND ADVANCING DEMOCRACY FOR THE NEW YEAR
In the critical years of the 1970s and 1980s, three major issues engaged the attention of my political colleagues – restore democracy, advance social progress and avoid civil strife. We firmly believed that Guyana could make no progress unless full democracy through free and fair elections were restored. Our analysis was that it was the […]
TO PRESERVE ITSELF, THE AFC MUST RESIGN FROM THE GOVERNMENT
Leaking information to the press is an old and revered tradition in a democracy. In the United States today, leaking is an essential element in the controversies surrounding the Trump presidency. It was leaks by “Deep Throat” that exposed the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon in 1974. It is therefore not surprising that […]