When the new era dawned
Editorial
THERE are several landmark years in Guyana's short but turbulent, contemporary, political history. Perhaps the two among those that stand in juxtaposition to each other are 1953 and 1992. In 1953 the first government elected under universal adult suffrage under colonial rule was overthrown. In 1992 the first government elected under restored democracy in an independent Guyana took office. The events of 1953 were to set the stage in this country for much of the problems, which subsisted until 1992, and beyond. Those events were triggered by the Cold War and concomitant foreign interference in the internal affairs of Guyana. In 1953 the People's Progressive Party (PPP) of Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Mr. Forbes Burnham had provided the Caribbean with a model of a multi-racial, national liberation party, decidedly committed to the working people and the down-trodden. But that movement fell victim to the Cold War, and the British deployed their gunboats to dispatch the country's first freely elected, popular, government. On October 9, 1953 the British Chief Secretary announced that "Her Majesty's Government had decided that the constitution of British Guiana must be suspended to prevent communist subversion..." The British invasion and subsequent American intervention led to a split of the nationalist PPP, which resulted in political division along ethnic lines. This division was exploited for ideological reasons with the result that it had become expedient since 1964 for communism to be used as a fig-leaf by Caribbean and foreign states to support fraudulent elections in Guyana. John Gaffar LaGuerre, a UWI professor wrote: "The story of Jagan's removal, the maneuvering against him by the UK and the US, the footworks of Caricom and his treatment at the hands of comradely regimes will go down in history as some of the worst disillusions of inter-Caribbean and international politics." Very few would today deny that the fundamental right to vote in honest elections was denied the Guyanese people at successive elections in 1968, 1973, 1980 and 1985. There is incontestable evidence that in 1978 a referendum on a new constitution was held, and massively rigged. And for twenty-four years between 1970 and 1994, local government and municipal elections were either held and rigged, or postponed. The issue of rigged elections was at the root of the interminable confrontation between the country's major parties, the PPP and the PNC. It exacerbated racial tensions between Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese. It was also at the heart of the decline of the economy and demoralisation of the populace. It was the push factor behind the exodus of Guyanese overseas. It also externalised Guyanese politics so that we became the focus of attention at the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, Caricom, and elsewhere. When elections were due in 1990 there was tremendous agitation for electoral reforms, which included the need for a revised voters list, counting of the ballots at the place of polls, international observers, non-involvement of the military on elections day, and restriction on the use of proxy voting. It took another two years for those concessions to be eventually made, and when elections were held on October 5, 1992, it was certified to be free and fair. The PNC which had held the reins of government for an unbroken twenty-eight years was voted out of office. The winners at the poll were the PPP/Civic alliance. There was a democratic and peaceful change in government. On October 9th, the day he was ousted from office in 1953, Dr. Cheddi Jagan took the oath of office as Guyana's President. In his December 17, 1992 address at the ceremonial opening of the Sixth Parliament, President Cheddi Jagan proclaimed: "October 5 ushered in a new era: a time for democratic renewal; a time for the rule of law; a time for peace and harmony; a time for change and a time to rebuild." He was to re-emphasise this two months later, when Guyana celebrated its first republic anniversary under a democratic government. "October 5 has liberated us. It has given us a chance for change and a chance to rebuild. October 5 has laid the cornerstone upon which a republic is built - the foundations of an elected, representative and democratic government... We have retrieved our respect, our dignity, and our self-esteem as a nation." It is in this context that we recall the significance of October 5 as a landmark date. It marked the end of an era, and the dawn of a new democracy in Guyana.
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