Latest update April 23rd, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 22, 2011 Letters
Dear Editor,
Mixed races and Amerindians (MR&A) do vote for the two race-based parties in Guyana- in the PPP/C and the PNCR.
Guyana will not change unless MR&As, who comprise a combined roughly 30% of the population, stop voting for race-based parties. It is that simple.
Unlike the staggering majority of Indians and Africans, the overwhelming majority of MR&As voters do not vote for the PNCR or the PPP/C purely or significantly out of race or ethnic considerations.
There is no deep emotional or psychological attachment to the PPP/C or the PNCR for the overwhelming majority of MR&A voters.
Considerations of race and ethnicity do not dominate the minds of most MR&A voters. In fact, MR&A voters have shown great flexibility in political choice since the 1950s.
These reasons tell us that MR&A voters are most capable to stop voting for race-based parties. That they are our greatest hope of breaking free from racialized politics in the short term.
And they must, on November 28th, to give this country a chance to break free from the shackles of fifty-plus years of ethnic politics.
The 2006 election showed that MR&A voters were already rejecting race politics and parties. Regions with high MR&A populations had lower than average voter turnouts in 2006. MR&As were a major part of the 31% that refused to vote in 2006.
The PPP/C‘s and PNCR‘s campaigns in 2011 have focused on each other and in doing so focused on traditional ethnic constituencies.
The negativity of the PPP/C‘s campaign and the outlandishness of the PNCR‘s promises are major turnoffs to many MR&A voters. MR&A voters made it clear in 2006 that they needed a new message and a new kind of politics. The PPP/C and the PNCR, locked at each other’s throats, have ignored the demands of MR&A voters for that new message and new kind of politics. T
he PPP and the PNC/APNU cannot deliver the kind of change MR&A voters’ desire. The campaigns of the PPP/C and the PNCR confirm they are not changing.
Actually, the evidence indicates they are incapable of changing. Despite their numbers, MR&As remain window dressing in the PPP/C and the PNCR while the real power lies along ethnic lines.
A case in point is the selection of Sam Hinds as the PPP/C’s PM candidate ahead of a vibrant Amerindian, Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett.
The traditional ethnic parties see MR&A voters as political pawns who must be controlled or materially bribed to keep their votes intact.
A classic case is the dependency syndrome the PPP/C has created in many Amerindian communities where Amerindians cannot even sneeze on their own lands without permission from some government hack. Amerindians have been politically trapped in their own lands by the PPP.
At about 30% of the entire electorate with growing populations, while the Indian and African populations steadily decline and in possession of the fastest growing percentage of young voters less connected to racial voting, MR&A voters can make that change Guyana needs to happen for a better Guyana. They can save Guyana. They hold the balance in this race voting cauldron.
If they staggeringly vote for a different party other than the PPP/C or the PNCR, such as the inclusive ideology of the AFC, Guyana is politically changed forever.
That is a guarantee, a given. Demographics show that Mixed Race and Amerindian citizens will become the combined majority ethnic populations in Guyana in approximately 25 years.
Thus, MR&As voting for non-race parties is not just an act of change now. It is an act that guarantees a better future when MR&As and their children become the majority ethnic groups in a future Guyana.
A vote for change is a vote to secure a better future for themselves and their children in a Guyana 25 years from now. A MR&A vote now for the PPP/C and PNCR is to vote to get a carcass of a nation when they become the majority in 25 years. All it takes is some ink and some willpower to change fifty-plus years of racial misery and ethnic shame. Amerindians and Mixed Races don’t even have to speak about it.
They can in fact lie about it. The truth should be found in the ballot box. In a nation fixated with race and scarred by ethnic conflict, it may be up to those who have no political base, no trapped psyche, no fear-determined mindset, no history of racial segregation and strife and emotional freedom to express political liberation to change this racially-decimated political hellhole for the betterment of us all.
I hope Amerindians and Mixed Race voters do something for this nation that this country is desperately crying out for on November 28. I sincerely hope they do.
M. Maxwell
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