Robert Buddan, Contributor

Guyana will hold elections on August 28. In both Jamaica and Guyana, the ruling parties have been in power since 1989 and 1992 respectively. Jamaica could also hold elections this year. Both ruling parties are leading in public opinion polls and are expected to win new terms.

The latest opinion poll has the ruling People's Progressive Party (PPP) enjoying the support of 45per cent of the population. The main opposition People's National Congress is supported by 28 per cent, and a new party, the Alliance for Change (AFC) has 13 per cent. Both ruling and opposition parties have almost identical numbers of seats in the two countries. Similarities between Jamaica and Guyana, however, stop there.

Guyana's politics is very different from Jamaica's. Guyana is a Republic. The electoral system is based on proportional representation. Ten parties are expected to contest and if the PPP does not win a majority of votes and seats, three small parties could hold the balance and force their way into a coalition government. Electors do not vote for candidates in constituency districts but for parties and parties publish lists of their candidates for parliament (National Assembly).

The head of state is the president who is the presidential candidate of the party receiving the most votes. The President appoints a Prime Minister who is a senior vice-president, Cabinet Minister and Leader of Government Business in the Parliament. Forty members of the Parliament are elected in national voting and another 25 represent the ten regions that constitute Guyana's local government regions. One-third of candidates to Parliament must be women. There is no senate. Guyana therefore does not have a typical Westminster system of government. However, the President can dissolve parliament so there is no American-style separation of powers either.

Politics in ethnic democracy

Guyana is also better described as an ethnic democracy. Electors vote mainly along ethnic lines. The 50 per cent of Indians in the population provide core support for the PPP. The PNC gets most of its support from the Afro-Guyanese, who make up 36 per cent of the population. The newer AFC gets support across ethnic lines and from some newer and younger voters who are dissatisfied with the main parties. It is led by politicians who themselves have left the PPP and PNC.

The recent polls suggest that the PPP has four things in its favour. Its leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, is the most popular of all the party leaders. In fact, the leader of the PNC, Robert Corbin, is regarded as unelectable as president. Second, the PPP has the support of the majority ethnic group, the East Indians. But more Afro-Guyanese support the PPP than the number of Indians who are willing to support the PNC. The PPP also does better than the PNC among those of mixed race. This is partly to do with the fact that the PPP governs in alliance with the Civic Forum, which is made up of mainly urban Afro-Guyanese who had been alienated from the PNC. In fact, since 1992, the PPP under presidents Cheddi Jagan, Janet Jagan, and Bharrat Jagdeo, has appointed Sam Hinds, leader of the Civic Forum as Prime Minister. The government is therefore usually referred to as PPP/Civic. Sam Hinds actually acted as President briefly after Cheddi Jagan's death in 1997.

The polls show that a third advantage of the PPP is that electors think the government is doing a good job compared to the government during the 28-year rule of the PNC under Forbes Burnham and Desmond Hoyte.

PNC rule was authoritarian and many elections were won by fraud. The British and American governments had helped to destabilize PPP governments of the 1950s and early 1960s to force the Marxist Cheddi Jagan from power and tacitly tolerated PNC abuses. The PNC has not been able to remove this stigma even after Corbin became its leader in 2001 and renamed the party, People's National Congress-Reform (PNC-R). In search of all-embracing support, it now calls itself One Guyana-Peoples National Congress-Reform.

The PNC-R (under Corbin) now says it prefers some kind of power sharing arrangement (apparently because it fears permanent minority status). But there is still too much bad blood between itself and the PPP. Indeed, even the smaller parties have been unable to sustain a common alliance with the large parties, mainly because so much bad memories, distrust and unreliability exist among them. Joey Jagan, son of Cheddi Jagan, has formed his own party saying that the PPP and PNC should form a 'big tent' or unity government. But Jagan remains a controversial figure who is also unable to forge any sustainable alliance with small parties.

One or two Guyanas

Guyana's political culture is still deeply steeped in ethnic perspectives. Elections always bring fears of ethnic violence. Claims of electoral fraud are often made simply because the chairman of the Guyana Election Commission is of East Indian descent; or because the chief of police is of African descent. While crime, violence and corruption might be treated independently of ethnic politics, they are often subsumed under claims of ethnic partisanship. Rural development through say, electrification and road building, might also be deemed ethnic patronage if this development occurs in areas where East Indians dominate, and they usually do in the sugar belt.

Ethnicity is highly politicised by the political class. This sometimes leads to the fear that the stress of elections might not only lead to violence but that this violence could split the country into two Guyanas, an Afro and an Indo-Guyana. The PNC's new label, One Guyana, might have been contrived to dissipate fears that it intends to campaign and govern along racial lines or to create two Guyanas. There is no popular support for this idea anyway. One small party, Rise, Organise and Rebuild (ROAR), favours integrative federalism, an idea that would give more regional autonomy to ethnically dominant regions while keeping the country as one.

Ethnic politics should not obscure the integrative forces and overlapping culture of Guyana. The country has regularly produced successful multi-racial cricket teams, carnivals, a common language, multi-racial business class, and other aspects of culture. It seeks to reinforce these integrative tendencies under its National Motto, 'One People, One Nation, One Destiny'. So far, it has been able to maintain one state.

Territorial politics

Guyana differs from Jamaica in another important respect. Being an island state, Jamaica has no territorial dispute with any neighbouring state. Guyana shares borders, some disputed, with Brazil, Suriname, and Venezuela. Guyana has been unable to properly police its large, uninhabited, forested borders and has been a target for South American drug and human traffickers.

But again, integrative tendencies can override divisive ones. Guyana is an important partner in Venezuela's PetroCaribe initiative and Hugo Chavez has agreed to use peaceful and diplomatic means to settle border disputes. Brazil is an important partner in Guyana's attempt to exploit its huge potential for an ethanol industry. Suriname and Guyana can explore for oil together.

It is for reasons like these why CARICOM's Headquarters is in Guyana, a symbol of the region's solidarity with that country in its regional disputes. It is to forge integrative relations why CARICOM backs Brazil for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council and Venezuela for a non-permanent seat. CARICOM and the OAS are critical to safeguarding Guyana's territorial sovereignty; and peaceful elections are similarly critical to the survival of Guyana's nation-state.

Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the department of government at the University of the West Indies. Email Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm