Political participation of young people a promising sign for democracy

May 08, 2020 Letters

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Dear Editor,

I must confess I was very gratified to see the number of young people who were lining up early yesterday to spend 11 hours in (relatively) close confinement doing their civic duty in this time of viral political and covid19 contagion. The facemasks seem especially appropriate at this time because they provided prophylactic protection for both diseases. At the same time, the multi-coloured fabric face-coverings as well as the social distancing also seem appropriate in this struggle for freedom of expression and for free and fair election results.
I am not entirely surprised by this display of fervor. My recent readings and reflections on Guyana’s elections dilemma have exposed me to an underlying political current, which was being followed by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP). They had conducted six rigorous and comprehensive surveys of Guyanese (in 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016) as part of their study of the Political Culture of Democracy in the Americas project. The statistical accuracies of their polls were no less than +or- 2.5% across 25 Caribbean and North, Central, and South American countries. The initial (2006) survey was conducted and reported by UG’s Institute of Development Studies and was used to arrive at a number of conclusions concerning democratic attitudes, values and behaviours of Guyanese. The second (2009) study was expanded to provide greater representation of Guyana’s 10 regions and another full report was prepared. Since then, beyond two brief power presentations in 2014 and 2016, there has been no known effort to complete full reports or to track changes in opinion over time. The data for all the studies as well as the reports and presentations are available, for free, on the LAPOP website. Guyana was not in the 2018 round of surveys and may no longer be part of the project.
There is a surfeit of information in the first two reports. I extracted the following data during my attempt to understand Guyanese’ ideas about democracy, elections, political representation, and governance. This much I learned:
1. The majority (52.2%) identified democracy as a process or a certain set of values which encompassed freedom of expression and free and fair elections. However, more than a third (34.3%) felt democracy had no meaning. The others felt democracy was either a bad idea or should be assessed based on economic outcomes.
2. Only about one in eight (12.2%) identified with a political party in 2009, a decrease from the one in five (19.4%) in 2006. This was a significantly lower level of party identification than every other country in the LAPOP group;
3. There were 70% of the respondents who said they voted in 2006 (about average for LAPOP countries). Of note, regional turnouts were statistically the same (with the exception of the difference between Regions 5&6 being more likely to vote than in Region 4); ethnic voter turnouts were statistically the same (except for Amerindians who were less likely than Indo-Guyanese to vote); and while more females voted than males and more elders voted than younger voters, there were no statistical differences by wealth, education and location.
4. When asked why they did not vote, one in three (35.4%) non-voters said they had no interest in voting for any of the candidates; one in four (24.3%) said they had no ID card or were not listed; and one in five (20%) said they were either sick or not interested in voting.
5. When asked why they voted the way they did, three in every ten voter (29.2%) gave a party as the reason for their vote; the rest were evenly split between the 35.5% who voted for the qualities of a candidate and the 35.2% who voted for the platform of a candidate.
6. The PPP voters were significantly more Indo-Guyanese, rural and those who identified with the ethnicity of their parents and/or perceived the nation’s economic situation to be improving, but less likely to be Amerindian or those concerned about their personal economic situation.
7. The PNC voters were significantly positively correlated with older voters, Afro-Guyanese and those who were optimistic about the nation’s economic future.
8. The only distinguishing factor among AFC voters was they were more likely to have some level of tertiary education.
9. Cross-tabulation of ethnicity and party voting revealed that two in three (68.7%) of the respondents who voted for the PPP were Indo-Guyanese; seven in ten (71.5%) of PNC voters were Afro-Guyanese, and two in five (39.6%) Mixed and one in three (31.5) Amerindians were the bulk of the AFC voters. Mixed voters made up a greater proportion of PNC (two in ten or 22.7%) voters than PPP (one in ten or 11.3%) voters while Amerindians made up a greater proportion of PPP (one in six or 16.3%) voters than PNC (one in 25 or 4.0%) voters.
10. The calm of 2006 election seem to have inspired greater voter interest. In 2009, eight out of ten (81.6%) of respondents had already registered for the 2011 election which was very high for LAPOP countries. Mixed and Amerindians were significantly less likely to have registered than Indo-Guyanese and the wealthier and urban respondents were more likely to have registered,
As they say, long story short: the majority of Guyanese care about their democracy and relatively (compared to LAPOP countries) large numbers voted for, despite their relatively low affinity with, the political parties. The data indicate that there are those few (one in three) who vote along party lines but the vast majority have other reasons for which they would have preferred to vote. That the two major ethnicities voted overwhelmingly for the major party of their ethnicity may have more to do with electoral and constitutional constraints (identified by those calling for electoral reform). In fact, the turnout for the AFC indicates that the two fastest growing ethnic groups are among those seeking representation beyond the long dominant ethnic parties.
This current outpouring of interest in the election process as well the results is a reflection of a majority view that democracy is important and free and fair elections are its most important protections. The strident young voices I am hearing are echoing Guyanese growing concerns about personal and national security, individual and national economy, public corruption, support for the political system and democracy, political tolerance, and trust in public institutions. Two alarming trends: 1) significant decline in public trust especially the police (lowest in LAPOP countries), political parties, judiciary and election institutions; and 2) one in five citizens who prefer authoritarian rule instead of a democracy.
In the current tumult, I am seeing signs of positive change. I liken this to the Arab Spring, but with a Guyanese flavour. The young people are coming forward as never before; they had launched 17 parties, nine of whom contested the elections, and they are staying the course of this long, exhausting, and frankly unhealthy path to protecting free and fair elections. I commend their effort and hope they inspire others: young and old, hot and cold, sweet and sour, frowsy and fresh to join them in forging a Guyana we can all be proud of.
Yours truly,
Rory Fraser

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