Multiracial Politics

Dec 09, 2012 Features / Columnists, Ravi Dev

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Mr Ralph Ramkarran recently interrogated the reasons for the PPP’s loss of a parliamentary majority. Positing that this was primarily due to the dwindling number of its Indian “core support”, he recommended: “Unless it wants to be continually painted into an ethnic corner, with diminishing strength as the Indian Guyanese population diminishes… The Party must be politically progressive, socially liberal, culturally diverse and ethnically inclusive.”
While Mr Ramkarran acknowledged “the ethnic factor’ in our politics, he appears to be advocating   the same old “multi-racial” approach that has failed ignominiously up to now. Since when hadn’t the PPP aspired and struggled to be “culturally diverse and ethnically inclusive”? The challenge, of course, is how does any party in Guyana represent interests that are correlated with ascriptive identity markers.
Ontologically then, what is a “multi-racial” party? Is it one in which the leaders are drawn from all or most of the various racial/ethnic blocs constituting our polity? Is it one that has members drawn from all the various groups? Do the proportions have to roughly mirror the population or will any assorted agglomeration do? Or does it mean that the interests of all the groups must be expressly articulated and represented? Should those interests be subsumed under some notion of a “national” interest? Who defines that “national” interest? And so on.
In Guyana, all of the parties in Guyana (excepting ROAR, of course) claimed that they were “multiracial”. They took special pains to have individuals from all the major race groups in their executive and courted votes from across the spectrum. They constructed “national” manifestos. Yet when it came to elections, the majority of the people invariably voted for one of the two major parties which were firmly identified with a specific ethnic bloc – the PPP with Indians and the PNC with Africans. This even occurred with the carefully crafted “multiracial” AFC in 2006. So the question is posed again: “What is an “authentic” multi-racial party?”
The question harks back to the roots of what constitutes “representation” in our “representative democracy”.  The favoured approach, from both the old Liberal and Marxist ideologies was the “representation of ideas”. That is, once the interests of the group are articulated, then anyone could “speak” for the group. By constructing “national” platforms in personnel and content, both the PPP and the PNC – and now the AFC – claimed to be capable of speaking for “all”. Yet, based on the results of elections, it is obvious that there was some way the people were getting “ethnic” signals as to which party better represented their interests.
The AFC is a good case in point. It went to great lengths in two elections to present itself as ‘multi-racial’ yet in 2006 it received primarily disaffected African votes from the PNC and which abandoned them in 2011, when it fortuitously became the beneficiary of Indian angst. If the PPP addresses the latter, the AFC will be left high and dry.
But the PPP’s (and every ‘multi-racial’ party’s) dilemma is how does it do that and not be branded ‘racial’?  We thought it was self-evident that the parties which the various ethnic groups selected via their votes should come together and work on a program that combined their several platforms. A temporary Government of National Unity which, like South Africa, can then work towards more realistic power-sharing mechanisms like federalism.
But the hitch is the evident distaste by the political parties to acknowledge that they are “ethnically” based. The greatest irony is that this acknowledgement, coupled with the acceptance to work together would result in the formation of “multi-racial” governance which, after all, is what the goal of all their politics is supposedly all about. The “multiracial” party was supposed to only be a way-station to the “multi-racial” government, wasn’t it?
A less radical approach towards articulating the interests of several  sub-groups under one ‘party banner’ is used by the Democratic party in the US: to allow specific “caucuses” for African and Hispanic voters. There is no shame in this or apologies to be made. It is now conceded that in addition to the old “representation of ideas” there is the need for “representation by presence,” especially for those who have been excluded or have experienced unique defining experiences.
Can’t we at least go this far in Guyana?
“Representation by presence” by its operation, has its own liberating potential. There are some who sincerely want to belong to “non-racial” parties, but I do not think we can ever create this unicorn in Guyana. Did everyone read Major Vaughn’s letter on his experience with Globe Trust? Where has a truly ‘multi-racial’ party been created? We have to work with the material we have: politics has to be pragmatic, in the philosophical sense of the word.
So if the PPP, PNC and AFC cannot accept they are ‘ethnic parties’, can they at least have explicit ethnic caucuses?

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