The ideals of the new third party

Jan 08, 2019 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I refer to your editorial of Monday January 7 entitled, “Is there room for a new third party?” in which you analysed the announcement of myself, Terrence Campbell, Henry Jeffrey and Timothy Jonas to establish “A New and United Guyana (ANUG),” a new political party.
Your editorial concluded: “However, there is evidence to prove that a new or third party does not stand a realistic chance of breaking the monopoly of the two-party system. The truth is, in theory, third parties have always appeared to the nation to be authentic, but in practice, they are doomed to suffer the same fate as all previous third parties mainly because they have not been able to break the pattern of racial voting in the country. Furthermore, third parties have a limited shelf life in that they do not last more than two election cycles.”
Your conclusion is not accurate. Both the United Force (UF) and the Alliance For Change (AFC) broke the PPP-PNCR monopoly, in 1964 and in 2011, but both frittered the advantage away, the UF by joining a coalition with the PNC in 1964 and the AFC by joining a coalition with APNU in 2015. Both were then subsumed.
Although the ethno-political issue in Guyana’s politics was a common thread, the failure of various third parties is attributable to widely diverse causes over the fifty-year period since Independence.
In the 1960s, the UF capitalized on the then large, indigenous, business sector led mainly by Portuguese and Indian business people and their supporters as well as the Amerindian people. They were able to influence 16 percent of the electorate in 1961 and 12 percent in 1964.
That decline continued because of two main factors – the large-scale emigration of that business class, after the 1962 riots and the joining of the UF in coalition with the PNC in 1964, which cost its Indian support.
The momentum enjoyed in the 1970s by the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) to replace the two main political parties, faltered with the assassination of Rodney. In the 2000s, the AFC fell victim to a failure to use its significant minority status to ensure a governmental system to defend the interests of its supporters. Instead, like the UF, it joined one side of the ethno-political divide.
Your editorial failed to take into account developments that have occurred in Guyana over the decades. The middle class, which had been decimated by emigration and impoverishment during the 1970s-1980s, began to recover from 1990 onwards.
Indian migration reduced the size of the Indian population and electorate. The recovery of the economy from about 1987, with fits and starts, but nevertheless with an upward trajectory, created a young, vibrant, entrepreneurial class who have witnessed that the business playing field is not level and that those who have political “lines” are unduly flourishing beyond what would normally have occurred.
These factors have led to a changing political landscape, which is more conducive to an appeal for the elimination of ethno-politics.
The historical record shows that Guyana has been on a search since 1950 for a system of politics where the major ethnicities in Guyana can cooperate for the benefit of all. We have not yet succeeded but it is clear that the issue has now become so important that the APNU+AFC placed constitutional reform leading to inclusive governance as its most important Manifesto promise in 2015.
Nothing has ever been done by third parties in any significant and substantial way to have as their major platform, the reform of our constitution to provide for the establishment of a Government comprising the major political parties and a system of governance that will eliminate ethnic insecurity, corruption and provide for the equitable distribution of Guyana’s resources without discrimination.
This is our proposal, and we believe that the time has come to make such a proposal to the Guyanese people. We believe that the Guyanese electorate have matured, and understand the need for constitutional reform, and that this proposal will therefore resonate and attract its support.
To establish our bona fides, we undertake to the Guyanese people that we will not join, now or in the future, either of the major parties in a coalition for the purpose of sustaining it in office, or for any other purpose. We will only enter government if we obtain a majority or the plurality at the elections.
To show that we are serious about not joining any of the major parties in government, we offer to make this promise justiciable, meaning that if we violate it, any member can take us to court for legal redress.

Ralph Ramkarran
A New and United Guyana

Editor’s note: Even before this letter reached the news desk, the party suffered its first resignation in the person of Mr. Terrence Campbell.

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