Latest update October 15th, 2024 12:59 AM
Jan 21, 2012 News
A potentially explosive situation was averted shortly after the November 28th General and Regional
Elections, according to the Alliance For Change (AFC)
AFC’s Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan, made the claims last week Saturday when he was invited as the Guest Speaker for the Congress of the People (COP) party convention in Trinidad.
He was at the time delivering the feature address on “The relevance of Third Parties in Race Based Politics: The Case of Guyana ”.
In arguing his case for the relevance of a third party, Ramjattan said that had there not been an AFC, “I rather suspect the seeds for the recycling of a scenario of the 1997 spectacle may well have been manufactured.”
He added: “I believe to a certain extent, the AFC’s performance in the last elections, which saw it as breaking the back of a PPP/C majority win, placated a potentially explosive situation which may have occurred had the PPP/C won a majority. Further, the calling out by the AFC that the election results of the
2011 General Elections was free and fair based on its scrutineers’ accounts in the various ballot stations placated a potential explosive situation which saw some in APNU believing that there may have been rigging!”
According to Ramjattan, what happened in Guyana recently makes it abundantly clear that indeed third parties have a relevance in race-based societies which previously was dominated by two generally tribal parties.
“…the AFC proved to be a positive force in that it was able to create a minority government, and to place itself to be that balance of power, and even to manage to wrest the Speakership of the National Assembly from the PPP/C, an important development.”
He believed that a third party allows for more voices to be heard at national and local levels on issues. “A third party provides the platform to launch a greater participation in the decision making process, or at least to provide an additional opportunity to procure such a greater participation.”
Deep debate
The AFC official noted that the Guyana system while allowing elections which are “infrequent”, does not generally promote a deep debate of the national and local issues.
“A third party provides again a condition for and a platform for debating these complex issues. By bringing the people closer to the issues, will the people be brought closer to the Government. At the very least, the third party forces the other two parties through the competitive spirit to bring the issues to the people.”
He drew a parallel between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago which he says have two dominant parties which practice ethnic-based politics. “Indo-Guyanese traditionally supported the PPP of Jagan fame; and Afro-Guyanese have supported the PNC of Forbes Burnham fame. Support for these two parties have been based, too, as a result of demography, occupation, culture and religion. This analysis one may say, will resonate here in Trinidad.”
Ramjattan, the AFC’s Presidential Candidate in the November elections, believed that although third parties usually have little chance of forming a government or winning the position of Head of Government, though this cannot be said to be impossible or improbable – COP being an example of that probability – “they seem to have relevance in race-based societies in the sense that they tend to bridge the racial divide, thereby seeking to present a multiracial party. So the race-based politics created by the two-party political system leads me to believe that a third party do have a much greater role to play in such a political system.”
Racial Divide
Third parties today, more than ever, are needed if Guyana is to bridge the racial divide in the hope of changing the political system in race-based societies. “This objective can work well in a scenario like Guyana where the ethnicities are all below 50 percent. Today we have approximately 42 percent East Indians; 32 percent Afro Guyanese; 15 percent Mixed; and, 11percent Amerindians. With 10 percent of the votes we managed seven Parliamentary seats.”
The AFC official told the Trinidad gathering that until the formation of the AFC, Guyana operated with the “same kind of parties” since Independence – namely the PPP and PNC.
“Both having name changes to PPP/C or APNU will not change their inherent character. They both represent an older order of hierarchy and centralism and race-based politics. The PPP/C under a Jagdeo leadership over the last decade, worse still, created a favoured elite, which I recently described in a Presidential Debate at UG as a Sultanate.”
A third party which seeks to break out from these strictures of hierarchy and centralism can be very relevant in a race-based politics dominated by two tribalistic existing parties.
“The AFC I will proudly assert has freed itself from these strictures during its last six years in existence. Its liberal democratic culture and equality of membership has broken free from a stultifying centralism and hierarchy which characterize the PPP/C and PNC. As a matter of fact, I as Chairman have been criticized for not reigning in dissenting views, and for being too liberal to the extent of permitting an exhibition of indiscipline, among the rank and file. But if you want a thousand flowers to bloom, I know of no other way.”
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