Please, first, let me commend Stabroek News for your continued recognition and spotlighting of the urgent need to repair our institutional weaknesses as a nation, even as we adjust to the oil economy. I wish also to recognize the sterling contributions of commentators including GHK Lall, Rohit Kanhai’s thoughtful letter of March 19 and Attorney Nigel Hughes’s articulate description of the Government’s biases in resource allocation. These analyses reflect a common understanding that finding a path to address underlying historic insecurities and political and institutional dysfunction is an absolute must if we are to realize the promise of improved wellbeing for citizens.

Today, I want to focus attention on a common misconception, prevalent in many discussions, that see the political context as a struggle for power between the majority Indo-Guyanese and minority Afro-Guyanese. It must be understood that Guyana is a land of ethnic minorities. If we understand majority to mean more than 50 percent of the population, there are no majorities in Guyana, only minorities. According to the 2012 population census (the latest available), Indos make up 39.8 percent of the population and Afros 29.3 percent. The rest of the population is divided mainly between Mixed Race (19.9 percent) and Indigenous (10.5 percent).

This misconception must be corrected because it is a major factor, aggravated by visible economic inequities, underlying the deep ethnic insecurities undermining political stability. Moreover, it stands to reason that our political instabilities stem largely from the country being held to ransom by the rivalry of two groups that make up less than 70 percent of the population.

More importantly, however, it means that ethnicity does not provide an ironclad guarantee of election outcomes, contrary to common belief. Anything close to such a guarantee is embedded in the provisions of our Constitution! Our constitution is set up for political discord and polarization. And that is why Constitutional reform is absolutely necessary.

To take this point further, even when Indo-Guyanese were in the majority, it was not the decisive factor. At the time of the 1961 general election when IndoGuyanese were in the majority (as census figures show), the PPP and PNC got almost the same proportions of votes – 42.6 percent for the PPP and 40.99 percent for the PNC – the slim margin of 1.6 percent. Notice that they both got less than 50 percent. However, under the FirstPast-the-Post system (FPTP) that was in operation in Guyana at the time, the PPP got almost twice as many seats as the PNC – 20 and 11, respectively, out of 35. There was no fraud here – that’s just how the FPTP system works. However, this serves to highlight the importance of systemic factors in determining election results and how we form our legislature and government.

This brings me back to the song I’ve been singing for years now: never mind our resource blessings, the path to the realization of true stability and prosperity for this nation must go through comprehensive dialogue and electoral reform. The electoral system needs a redesign to strengthen democratic control of the legislature and the accountability of politicians. Fundamentally, it needs reform to make it more responsive to the needs of the population.

Our country was birthed in the middle of turbulence and we are stuck going over the conflicts and premises of the 1960s. And while the population at large hungers for change and better conditions, it is the voices of discord and dysfunction that have the megaphone. We must find a way to a genuine, well-informed, all-round dialogue, which is well within the capabilities and personality of the Guyanese people.

Sincerely,

Desmond Thomas