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Local Government Elections and racial voting
As the nation prepares for Local Government Elections (LGE) scheduled for November 12, there is cause for serious concern by many about racial voting and the outcome of the elections. In Guyana, general elections have always generated a passion and a furor for race-based politics, which, practically, is a political manifestation of who we are as a people.
Although such manifestation is less in LGE, yet it is an in-depth problem that has caused disunity and has stifled the development of the country
The animosity between Indo-and-Afro Guyanese is historical; it can be traced back to the freed blacks becoming suspicious of the arrival of indenture East Indian servants from India whom they feared would have compromised their bargaining rights with the planter class in British Guyana.
From that period, the racial division between the two races assumed various forms with blacks being more urban and drawn to jobs in the civil service, while the East Indians who remained in rural areas were basically involved in agriculture and cash-crop farming.
Much acculturation and interchange took place amidst this division as seen in the inter-marriages between the two races. But the most poignant manifestation of this division is the race-based party politics which emerged in the late 1950s and has blossomed since independence.
This shift to racial politics first became noticeable in Guyana upon the introduction of adult voting rights. The 1957 elections held under a new constitution gave light to the growing ethnic division with the emergence of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) which had two factions, one headed by Forbes Burnham and the other by Dr. Cheddi Jagan.
Today, the People’s National Congress (PNC) draws its support mainly from Afro-Guyanese and the PPP from Indo-Guyanese.
Notwithstanding our national anthem, our national motto of one people, one nation, one destiny and all the talk of unity by both our leaders, this division in politics is likely to remain gospel for the foreseeable future. The reason is that racial politics suits the leaders of both parties who rely on tribalism to secure power and the tribes are playing the same game to fill their pockets.
It is instructive to see if both races could shift their focus away from racial voting in the upcoming LGE. This would send a clear and poignant message to all our politicians by youths who are 65 percent of the population that they should take heed that things are changing in the country in terms of voting.
Racial politics is being regarded as a mockery to unity in that it has unraveled trust among the people.
The fact is almost all multi-ethnic societies, including Guyana, have provided the terrain for racism and racial voting solely at election time. Racism in general is an ideology that depicts another group as being congenitally inferior to one’s own group.
It is worse when racial inequality is injected into rules, procedures, practices and policies of organizations/ governments to deny opportunities and equal rights to certain racial groups or individuals as was the case under the last administration. It is referred to as institutional racism.
Racial voting has destroyed any possibility of lower class solidarity in Guyana, where ideological viewpoints have been replaced with racial identification, which became the preeminent ingredient in the organization of popular political participation in the country. In modern Guyana, racial voting is less rigid than it was in colonial and early post-colonial days.
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