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Govt’s policies and programmes must be reflective of this fundamental truth
DEAR EDITOR,
This month marks the 68 year since the formation of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP). The Party was founded on January 1, 1950 under the leadership of Dr. Cheddi Jagan, his wife Janet and Forbes Burnham who served as General Secretary and Chairman respectively.
This year also is the centenary year of the late Dr. who was born on March 22, 1918. Indeed, the PPP as a political institution is organically linked to the ideas and philosophy of Dr. Jagan, which by and large continues to influence and shape the thinking of the PPP until this day.
It is to the credit of Dr. Jagan and the party he founded, that in just over three years of its formation, the party won a landslide victory in the elections of 1953, the first under universal adult suffrage.
The PPP won 18 out of 24 seats and continued to win all elections from then on until it was engineered out of office in 1964, thanks to the intrigues of Anglo-American vested interests, in collaboration with local reactionary forces which included the PNC and The United Force.
What transpired after that is now history, and represented a break from competitive electoral politics based on the Westminster model of majoritarian rule. The PNC rigged all subsequent elections until democracy was finally restored to the country in October 1992, when once again the PPP won decisively.
There are some who attributed the success of the PPP to “race politics” which, they argued, gave the PPP a competitive advantage at the polls by virtue of a predominant Indian base. This, however, masks some fundamental characteristics of the PPP, among which is the working class orientation of the Party and its embrace of an ideology that transcends the narrow confines of race and religion.
It is this universalistic appeal of the PPP that is responsible for the party enjoying the confidence of Guyanese, right across the ethnic and religious spectrum of the society.
The PPP is the largest multi-ethnic party in Guyana, with significant Amerindian and Afro-Guyanese support, in addition to its core Indo-Guyanese support base.
This is why any discussion on inclusive governance, national unity and social cohesion cannot ignore this fundamental reality.
This is by no means an attempt to downplay race as an important variable in our national politics. It is merely an attempt to refocus attention away from ethno-cultural determinism to one that is more class-oriented, where the working and living conditions of all Guyanese, regardless of race or ethnicity, must be placed at the centre of our developmental agenda.
All Guyanese look forward to the good life and it is the duty and responsibility of the government to ensure that its policies and programmes are reflective of this fundamental truth.
Hydar Ally
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