- Burnham and the PNC years
Elections were again held in British Guiana in 1957. Jagan’s PPP won nine seats, Burnham’s PPP won three seats, other minor parties, the NLF and the UDP (United Democratic Party) won one seat each. The Jaganite PPP became the government and Jagan became the Minister of Trade and Industry. After the elections of 1957, the ethnic divide hardened. The Burnhamite PPP merged with the conservative UDP to form the PNC (People’s National Congress). The question can be asked – was the split engendered by racism or ideology? According to Garner, “The initial phase of ethnopoliticization in British Guiana was completed in 1956 by the splitting of the nationalist movement (at every level) into two opposing camps within which, one or the other of the two largest ethnic groups were dominant” (Garner 2008, 107). If the distinction between ‘Marxist’ Jagan and ‘socialist’ or ‘moderate’ Burnham is allowed then a case can be made that ideology was indeed a factor. However, if Burnham’s later policies were taken into account, then it is clear than the distinction between Marxist Jagan and socialist Burnham can not hold. Opportunism, in the face of British and American opposition to Cheddi Jagan’s avowed Marxism, would seem to be a more accurate explanation of Burnham’s moderation.
Burnham could be seen, from one perspective, not as a principled socialist or Marxist, but as an opportunistic politician who was not ideologically committed to a particular position but who would adopt whatever political posture that suited his political objectives. The argument could be made, however, that Burnham’s public postures should be assessed as strategic posturing. Hence the idea that Jagan was politically naïve, while Burnham was more ‘politically intelligent’ has been advanced as an explanation. Ethno-opportunism, however, if defined as a community colluding with foreign interests in pursuit of political power, seems to be a more viable explanation in the light of the distinction between word and deed. Ethno-opportunism, however, has its downside. It means that collusion with foreign interests results in a competition for approval from the colonial powers and as the PNC was to discover later – two can play at that game, particularly when the financial persuasion of the IMF/World Bank ‘Washington Consensus’ became utilized.
In the 1961 elections, there were a number of political parties competing, among them were Jagan’s PPP, Burnham’s PNC and Portuguese businessman Peter D’Aguiar’s UF (United Force).The PPP won with 20 seats, the PNC won 11 and the conservative UF won 4 seats. The period after the 1961 elections was characterized by destabilization and violence. An account of that period posted by the US Department of State on the relations between Washington and Jagan and Burnham states:
Jagan believed with good reason that Washington’s opposition was one of his main problems. While these diplomatic efforts were underway, the U.S. Government acted on a covert political plan to defeat Jagan by funneling secret financial support, campaign advice and expertise, and other assistance to the two main opposition parties, Linden Forbes Burnham’s People’s National Congress (PNC) and Peter D’Aguiar’s United Front (UF). (370) Realizing that Burnham, as the leading Afro-Guyanese politician, was Jagan’s most able and by far his most popular opponent, the U.S. Government focused its efforts on him and the PNC. (391, 414) The U.S. Government supplied anti-Jagan films and publications, cut almost all aid to British Guiana, and refused all of Jagan’s overtures for high-level meetings with U.S. officials, hoping to undercut his prestige. (US Department of State, 2005)
After the 1961 elections, the PPP introduced its austerity budget of 1962. This budget advocated a regime of progressive taxation, and a compulsory savings scheme on salaries above G$100 per month. Trade unions antagonistic to the PPP, and as St. Pierre and Garner have claimed, influenced by American trade unions (the AFL-CIO), agitated against the budget (St. Pierre 1999, Garner 2008, 139). St. Pierre writes, “Thus by February 1962, when rioting broke out, American trade union influence was well established” (St. Pierre 1999, 148). The 1962 riots escalated and ethnic violence broke out in many areas. The question uppermost in the minds of British and American officials was how to deal with this jostle for power between ‘communist’ Jagan and ‘socialist’ Burnham and their respective ethnic communal supporters. Jagan, it must be remembered, had been democratically elected in 1953, 1957 and 1961.
There was one school of thought that envisioned weaning Jagan from his communist ways; that Jagan was not a committed communist although there were close associates who were ideologically so defined (Garner 2008, St. Pierre 1999). Another school of thought viewed Jagan as an unrepentant communist who would be another Castro in the Caribbean and who therefore had to be rendered politically impotent. Both Maurice St. Pierre and Steve Garner have detailed the intervention of Britain and America into the politics of British Guiana, and their attempts to keep Jagan out of power, seeing him as representative of that communist threat and another Fidel Castro. Suffice to say, Proportional Representation (PR) was imposed on the country as the best means of keeping Jagan from winning the elections. PR was implemented in British Guiana before the 1964 elections. “On 2 October 1963, COLOFF official R.W. Piper called in an American Embassy Officer to explain that, in an effort to solve the BG constitutional problem, HMG would probably convene a conference on 22 October, during which time Sandys would state that HMG was ‘imposing’ a solution involving a new electoral system based on proportional representation” (St. Pierre 1999, 187).
There were three major parties involved in the 1964 elections held under the new PR format: the PPP, the PNC and the United Force (UF). The results showed that the PPP won 24 seats with 45.8% of the votes, the PNC won 22 with 40.5% of the votes, and the UF won 7 with 12.4 % of the votes. The 1964 elections were conducted under a State of Emergency which continued until December 1966. Since none of the parties had more than 50% of the votes, the PNC and UF formed a coalition government that administered the country from 1964 to 1968. During this time, Forbes Burnham would, according to Premdas, “proceed to erect, slowly initially, a thoroughgoing system of ethnic control in Guyana” (Premdas 1995, 115). The UF, necessary at first to ensure a majority in Parliament, became a millstone around the neck of the PNC in the view of Burnham (Burnham 1970, 153). D’Aguiar’s party represented the old privileged class, who were aligned to Western interests and who were intent on keeping their positions of superiority in the society. After a number of MP’s crossed over to the PNC, the UF was expelled from the coalition and the PNC gained full control of the government (Premdas 1995, 118).
Premdas describes how the PNC consolidated its power after the 1968 elections which “would be incontrovertibly established as rigged elections” (Premdas 1995, 118). The process entailed a radical reformation of the economic structure of the country, which had “favoured big businessmen, large property owners, and foreign companies” and which did not favor his party’s “communal supporters” (Premdas 1995, 119). Burnham’s socialism, in other words, was a consequence of his objective of seizing economic power from “communal supporters” who opposed him and bestowing it on his own supporters. Garner suggests a similar process, adding “militarization” to nationalization as the means of “enabling the PNC to extend it patronage network” (Garner 2008. 157). By 1970, Guyana was declared to be a “Co-operative Republic”. According to Premdas, “From private enterprise, the economy was to be founded on co-operatives as the main instrument of production, distribution, and consumption” (Premdas 1995, 120). Burnham maintained power through rigged elections and through manipulating the legal system to legitimize political authority. The majorities obtained through fraudulent means were used to change the constitution of Guyana. According to Garner:
Between 1968 and 1980, the distinction between the Guyanese state and the PNC was steadily eroded by a series of constitutional amendments, referenda and pieces of legislation. By 1985, the PNC had become the Guyanese state, as Burnham had declared in his 1974 ‘Declaration of Sophia’ that ‘the party should assume unapologetically its paramountcy over the Government which is merely one of its executive arms’. (Garner 2008, 157).
The economy, meanwhile, was undergoing profound changes. John Gafar gives a detailed account of the performance of the Guyanese economy in the period 1960 to 2001 in his book Guyana: From State Control to Free Markets. Suffice to say, while GDP and per-capita GDP rose from 1964 to 1976, after 1976 up to 1990 there was a catastrophic decline in GDP (from approximately G$24000M to about G$16000M) and per-capita GDP (from approximately G$35000 to G$19000) (Gafar2003, 38). Gafar writes that the state of crisis in the economy was due to “falling production, mounting arrears on foreign debt payments and widening trade deficits due largely to inappropriate domestic expansionary monetary and fiscal policies, and financial mismanagement” (Gafar 2003, 43). Ferguson states that “Guyana was in a virtual state of collapse by 1985” (Ferguson 1995, 32). This decline in economic performance had far-reaching political consequences because of its effect on PNC supporters.
While the PNC was facing this economic crisis, the Working Peoples Alliance (WPA), led by one of the Caribbean most illustrious intellectuals, Walter Rodney, organized demonstrations and strikes against the government among traditional supporters of the PNC. Premdas writes: “The PNC regime, especially since 1977, had become embattled. It was attacked by Rodney’s WPA and the other left-wing groups; threatened by the withdrawal of support from the middle class professional group which managed the day to day operations of the government; and bewildered by the demonstrations and strikes mounted by its own supporters in its traditional strongholds …” (Premdas 1995, 131). In June 1980, Rodney was assassinated and Burnham resorted to increased repression to continue his hold on political power. Guyana descended into a reign of terror that was to end only with the death of Forbes Burnham in 1985 and the assumption of office by Desmond Hoyte, who, realizing that the repressive nature of Burnham’s rule had created an explosive social situation in Guyana, decided to initiate changes in the political and economic policies of the government. Melissa Ifill claimed that:
Desmond Hoyte’s accession to the president’s office after the death of Forbes Burnham in August 1985, gave rise to fundamental changes in the political and economic direction of the state by the early 1990s. The Hoyte administration quickly confirmed its desire to institute policy changes in the local economy despite opposition from some influential members within the PNC. Under Hoyte’s stewardship, several strategies and policies were adopted that conflicted with the co-operative socialist ideology that the PNC, under Burnham’s leadership, had espoused. (Ifill 2002).
In fact, the economic crisis was too profound to ignore. Aid was critical if the economy had any chance of being resuscitated. In 1985, Guyana had become the first country to be declared as being ineligible to have access to the resources of the IMF (Ferguson 1995, 55). International Financial Institutions, therefore, had to be assuaged. The relationship between the IMF/World Bank and Guyana had been a strained and erratic one, and it is this intervention of the IMF/World Bank into the Guyanese drama that played out in the 1980s to 1990s that will be looked at next.
The philosophy of Darryl Naranjit 