GIVE DEMOCRACY A CHANCE!

Feb 25, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Westminster-styled democracy is being pilloried in countries in which there are two dominant ethnic groups. It is argued that rather than promoting stability, this model does the opposite. Democracy, traditionally associated with free and fair elections, is under threat, because it is argued it does not address the ethnic question in bifurcated electorates.
In the Caribbean, ethnic polarization of the electorate has led to demands in both Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana for new system of politics. It has led to strong criticisms of the Westminster model of government. It has prompted calls for this model to be scrapped.
The politics of Trinidad and Tobago is similar to Guyana. Voting is polarized along ethnic lines in both countries. This is a product of these countries’ political history. In both countries there are two main parties.
In Guyana there is the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR) and the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPPC). The equivalent in Trinidad and Tobago is the United National Congress (UNC) and the People’s National Movement (PNM).  Each of these parties draws the bulk of its support from one of the two major ethnic groups. The same obtains in Guyana. Elections in both countries are normally characterized by ethnic polarization.
There is however a major difference between Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. In Trinidad and Tobago there have been UNC governments and PNM governments over the past twenty years. On the other hand, in Guyana, the PPPC has been in power for the past twenty-two years.
There is another related difference. In Trinidad and Tobago, there have been smooth transitions when it comes to a change of government through elections. In Guyana, the opposition has consistently refused to abide with the wishes of the people, and therefore after each election there is usually a period of tension and instability. The Guyanese people have never had an experience of a smooth transition from one government to another.
This difference is important, and I believe crucial to undermining ethnic polarization during elections. While there remains strong ethnic polarization at the polls in Trinidad and Tobago, significant cracks are beginning to appear in that country’s voting patterns.
This was apparent when former UNC Chairman Jack Warner contested a run-off election against a candidate from his old party for a constituency long considered a UNC stronghold. Jack Warner won that run-off. His electoral fortunes subsequently dipped, but his victory was a signal that things were changing in Trinidad and Tobago, slowly but surely.
In Guyana, a similar situation has never occurred. The AFC has emerged as an important political force, but it has not done anything like what Jack Warner did in the run-off elections. While the AFC did make some headway in 2006 into the PNCR stronghold of Region 10, it still did not win that region. And while it made headway into some PPP strongholds in 2011, it did not win those regions either.
In fact there is a myth that one of the AFC’s leaders was responsible for the good showing of the AFC in Region 6 in the 2011 elections. A review of the votes secured by the AFC in Berbice would however reveal that the party’s support was widely spread in all of the areas of that region.
And an understanding of why this happened has to do with the footwork done by former activists of the ROAR party, formerly led by Ravi Dev. It was the canvassing by these activists that secured the votes for the AFC in both Regions 5 and 6. Sadly, for reasons well known to the AFC, these activists were sidelined after the elections and will not be there to help the AFC repeat in 2015.
There have been all kinds of theorizing as to how the ethnic polarization of the electorate in Guyana is to be reduced. All manner of solutions have been proposed. Faith has even been put in the young voters to break with this tradition. But election after election, the young voters continue the tradition of the past and the polls remains ethnically polarized.
Voting in Guyana in democratic elections is today viewed as an ethnic census. As such, questions are being raised as to whether this form of Westminster democracy perpetuates Guyana’s ethnic polarization.
I want today to differ from this view, and to argue instead that the same Westminster democracy offers the best hope for the eventual demise of ethnic voting. I want to suggest that enough attention and faith has not been put in democracy as a solution to ethnic polarization.
I believe that if people in Guyana are able to experience smooth transitions of power from one party to the other, if the will of the people is respected and if there is no instability created after elections, then the various ethnic groups will come around to realize that the fears they have of the assuming of power of a government from the “other” are misplaced. This will eventually reduce ethnic insecurities and consequently ethnic polarization in voting.
However, if after each election in Guyana, all the people see are the losers from those elections trying to create unrest and claiming that they were cheated and robbed, this will continue to stir ethnic insecurity and promote rather than reduce ethnic polarization.
If the opposition parties in this country are keen to reduce ethnic insecurity – which is what keeps the PPP in power – they have to give the Guyanese people an experience of respecting the will of the people.
If the supporters of the PPP see an opposition that is willing to gracefully accept defeat and not cause problems in the country, they will come around to the idea that it is possible for smooth transitions to a new government via elections.
In Trinidad, this experience is bearing fruit. There have been UNC governments and PNM governments over the past twenty years. This year is an election year in Trinidad. If the People’s Partnership loses, you can be sure there will be another smooth transition to the PNM, because the people have had that experience before. Voting is still polarized there, but this is no longer sufficient to secure political power for either of the two main parties.
Democracy is transforming voting patterns in Trinidad. The process may be slow, but it is sure.  Democracy should be given a chance in Guyana.

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