Elections in Guyana is not about policies but ethnic allegiance

Oct 31, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor

Kaieteur News – I wish to commend Isobel Yeung, the reporter and Michael Learmonth, Editor in Chief of VICE News on the production and airing of this short documentary video of corruption in Guyana.

I am a Canadian citizen born in British Guiana and lived there for 4 decades and fought against the institutionalized corruption in my native land. The information uncovered in this video is consistent with what I have experienced and know to be accurate.

Guyana is an English speaking relatively small nation of approximately three quarters of a million in an area approximately 83,000 square miles that was previously colonized by the Dutch and subsequently the British from whom it acquired its independence on May 26, 1966.
The English-speaking nation therefore has a rich history of slavery and indentureship with the two main ethnic groups being East Indians and Africans in an ethnic and cultural mosaic of six in total. The country has adopted its legal system and enforcement of laws based on the Westminster model of the three branches of government and the Anglo Saxon legal system and English jurisprudence.

The South American country that shares an emblem of West Indian history and culture saw the coming to power of the Africans segment of the nation with the Peoples National Congress under the leadership of the late Mr. Forbes Burnham and the United Force, Mr. Peter D’Aguiar in a coalition in 1964. During the reign of the PNC-R Guyana 1964 to 1992, saw the country very quickly becoming a dictatorship where the late Forbes Burnham used the numerous military institutions staffed with Guyanese of African ethnicity to strip the citizenry of their rights aided by a ruthless and corrupt law enforcement agency, the Guyana Police Force.

On October 5th, 1992, there was a change in government with the People’s Progressive Party/Civic under its historic leader the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan whose firm convictions and loyalty to communist ideals is simply undisputed took the reins of control in the nation’s corridors of power. The subject person in the video Mr. Bharat Jagdeo assumed the leadership with the distinct blessings of Dr. Cheddi Jagan from the late 1990’s until that political party lost to the Peoples National Congress in a coalition with the Alliance For Change in 2015 and subsequently was elected back into government in 2020.

The corruption in all these years were underscored by an unlawfully passed 1980 constitution, a corrupt and unprofessional law enforcement agency and legal courts system, a parliament that resembles a gong show with politically-biased Speakers, a revenue taxation agency that is loyal to the government, the government have direct influence of more than 70% of the economy, etc as some of the institutions that not only spawned but more importantly became it’s foundations.

Both of these two ethnic political parties the People’s Progressive Party/Civic and the PNC-R Guyana are supported by the country’s two main ethnicities, East Indians and Africans and mixed ethnicity respectively. Mr. Bharat Jagdeo, the current Vice President and the leader of the People’s Progressive party is the defacto President and its current President, Mr. Irfaan Ali, in my view, is a window dressing version of the person in charge and takes his instructions from Mr. Bharat Jagdeo who directs the show and makes the important decisions putting himself in charge of the recently discovered and formed oil ministry.

The elections have consistently supported the model of ethnic allegiance for more than six decades where East Indians vote for the People’s Progressive Party/Civic and Africans and those of mixed ethnicity vote for the PNC-R Guyana

Both the Alliance For Change and the Working People’s Alliance (under the leadership of the late Dr. Walter Rodney who was assassinated by the PNC-R Guyana under the leadership of Mr. Forbes Burnham) of which I was a part of in the county of Berbice in the 1980’s have almost no significant support as in the last national elections in 2020 where the two ethnic political parties amassed more than 90% of the participatory electorate driving the third political force into the political wilderness.

Elections in the once British colony is not based on securing the electorate’s support based on policies but ethnic allegiance in order to keep the other ethnic side from the nation’s corridors of power and away from the public treasury and justified with a fierce ethnic loyalty of the lesser of two evils.

The corruption that is driven by these named institutions are intact and supported by both national political parties where these leaders will lie and remain in office as the country has no mechanism in which the citizenry can bring pressure to bear and force these leaders to leave office.

For example, in a press conference in Guyana involving the Vice President and the defacto President, Mr. Bharat Jagdeo, recently and the Guyana Press including the Kaieteur News, a journalist from Kaieteur News posed the question of real-time monitoring of costs, which exists as a clause in the agreement attached below in the comments for verification. Mr. Bharat Jagdeo responded at the time and paraphrasing that no such clause exists in the Petroleum Agreement signed on 27th June, 2016 between the Government of Guyana and Esso, Nexen and Hess giving the government continuous audit capabilities.

In addition, when questioned about the oil contract signed by the previous government, Mr. Bharat Jagdeo, in a very distasteful and unprofessional manner invented the nonsensical and inconsistent argument about ‘sanctity of contract’ which seems to be rational in his mind and kept referring to debt servicing measures of his government and circular nonsensical arguments.

Debt servicing measures, which for 25 years by his government, that has seen Guyanese families struggling to put bread and milk on their family’s table, pay their bills and keep light on in their homes. The purpose of providing this historical context is while the reporter Isobel Yeung touched on important issues on corruption in Guyana, the preservation of the above named institutions by the two main political parties ensures a very dismal future for Guyanese families.
What supports this corruption model is the notable absence of a free and independent Press in Guyana that is able to hold the government accountable and both the Stabroek News and Kaieteur News are opposed to printing of information that is not only accurate but can quite easily be defended in a court of law. Those who condemned Vice News including the President of Guyana, Mr. Irfaan Ali and the supporters of the People’s Progressive Party, are in opposition to an international and independent investigation on corruption in Guyana which terms of reference are consistent with the requirements of the Rule Of Law with specific reference to this video by VICE News. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOOFSJqBYTY

Kris Kooblall
Toronto, Canada

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