The PNC belongs in the bosom of the PPP

Mar 30, 2023 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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Kaieteur News – Power-sharing is not part of the country’s political agenda. But a few years ago, power-sharing trumped all talk about ideological unity.

Power-sharing has been discredited. The post-Jagan PPP was never interested in sharing power. The APNU+AFC breached its promise that if it won the elections, it would include the PPP/C in the government.

Power-sharing is now becoming a euphemism for power-grabbing rather than a concerted attempt at forging a unity of the working class which was behind most of the other proposals made from the sixties right through to 1992. Once the PPP won the elections in 1992, it saw itself as constituting the basis for uniting the Guyanese people. Since then, working class unity no longer informed the discourse on power-sharing. In fact, the whole concept of working-class unity seems to have vanished from the agenda of the two main political parties, the PNC/R and the PPP/C. These parties are now committed to a mixed economy, one that recognises the importance of the capitalist class and which sees this class as the engine of growth.

In 1966, when the Forbes Burnham administration took over in an ill-fated alliance with the United Force, the capitalist class also felt that it was their moment and that it had emerged as the vehicle for the development of Guyana. Within four years, they were fleeing with their money as the then PNC unleashed a campaign of nationalisation, foreign exchange and import restrictions and high taxation that crippled their abilities and had them worried scurrying to shift their assets to safe havens.

Despite sending much of the capitalist class into exile, the PNC did not pursue any seriousness or sincere attempt at working class unity. Whatever efforts were made at unity between the PNC and the PPP were more aimed at staving off imperialist pressures rather than building a nationalist working class movement such as what existed in the 1950’s under the original PPP with Cheddi Jagan as leader and Forbes Burnham as Chairperson.
Burnham, however, had personal ambitions. He was more interested in becoming Premier than in securing working class unity. He was quite prepared to split the working class in order to achieve his personal ambition of becoming Premier not just of Guyana but also of the proposed West Indian Federation.

He thus split the PPP into two factions, the Burnhamite PPP and the Jaganite PPP. The Burnhamite PPP eventually became the PNC. Burnham lost two consecutive elections, under the constituency system, to the PPP headed by Jagan. In 1964, the PPP beat the PNC again under a new system of proportional representation but Burnham refused to join forces with Jagan to form a working-class government that would have taken a united Guyana into independence and instead hooked up with the capitalist class to form a coalition government and oust the PPP from office. Both leaders, however, never forgot that they were part of the same party and Jagan always harboured hopes that one day Burnham and his PNC would return home to the PPP. He very much wanted that because he felt this was the only way that genuine working-class unity could be achieved.

It never did, even though there are some who contend that the two parties were near to an agreement just about the time when Burnham died. The truth, however, is that nothing was ever concretised and, therefore, there was nothing to take the process forward after Burnham died.

Since then, working class unity has been placed on the backburner. Worse yet, the working class suffered under Burnham’s successor, Desmond Hoyte. After Jagan died in 1997, the PPP abandoned any pretence at working class unity. This has continued onto this day.
While both the PPP and the PNC have working class origins, there is little to suggest that they are keen on forging a genuine working-class movement across party lines.

Jagan always wanted Burnham back within the PPP. All of his proposals about power-sharing were about forging working class unity so as to build socialism. Once socialism was off the cards, he had little need for working class unity.

Socialism is now permanently off the cards, for both the PPP and the PNC/R and, therefore, the prospects of any power-sharing based on working class unity is off the table.

The PNC is not interested in uniting the working class, and the PPP is now deeply intertwined with the capitalist class in Guyana. The prize today is no longer working-class unity. It is all about who sits in the seat of power. So how about a new proposal aimed at securing working class gains. How about talks about establishing a formula and time-frame for paying a living wage? How about discussions aimed at agreeing on measures to reduce the prohibitive cost of living, apart from cash grants? How about tax reform aimed at linking tax breaks to the rich to re-investment of profits? How about allowing the small man who has his two cents in the bank being allowed to invest in the gas-to-shore and hydroelectric projects?

How about, in other words, both the PNC/R and the PPP making proposals for working class benefits and through this, forge a unity of the working class? Any takers? I guess not.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of this newspaper and its affiliates.)

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• Burnhamite, Jaganite, nationalisation, Peeping Tom, PPP

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