Post-Colonial Trajectories in the Caribbean

The Three Guianas

Rosemarijn Hoefte, Matthew L. Bishop, Peter Clegg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317014041
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book compares and contrasts the contemporary development experience of neighbouring, geographically similar countries with an analogous history of exploitation but by three different European colonisers. Studying the so-called 'Three Guianas' (Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana) offers a unique opportunity to look for similarities and differences in their contemporary patterns of development, particularly as they grapple with new and complex shifts in the regional, hemispheric and global context. Shaped decisively by their respective historical experiences, Guyana, in tandem with the laissez-faire approach of Britain toward its Caribbean colonies, was decolonised relatively early, in 1966, and has maintained a significant degree of distance from London. The hold of The Hague over Suriname, however, endured well after independence in 1975. French Guiana, by contrast, was decolonised much sooner than both of its neighbours, in 1946, but this was through full integration, thus cementing its place within the political economy and administrative structures of France itself. Traditionally isolated from the Caribbean, the wider Latin American continent and from each other, today, a range of similar issues – such as migration, resource extraction, infrastructure development and energy security – are coming to bear on their societies and provoking deep and complex changes.

1Colonial legacies and post-colonial conflicts in Guyana

Kate Quinn

On 10 November 2014, President Donald Ramotar suspended the Guyanese parliament, thereby avoiding a no-confidence motion brought by the opposition that was due to be debated that day. As Ramotar himself conceded, the one-seat majority of the opposition ‘could only mean [the passage of the vote of no confidence] and the immediate irreversible dissolution of parliament’ prompting fresh elections to be called within ninety days.¹ While Ramotar insisted on the constitutionality of prorogation (provided for under Article 70 (1) of the Guyana Constitution), the suspension of parliament was viewed by the opposition at home and influential voices abroad as a clear violation of democracy, resulting in the partial suspension of aid by the European Union and condemnation from officials in the United States. Opposition statements denouncing the move as a breach of fundamental democratic rights were echoed in the official response by the former colonial power: Andrew Ayre, British High Commissioner to Guyana, condemned the suspension of parliament as a ‘clear breach of the Guyana Constitution and the Commonwealth Charter’ and called for a return to parliamentary democracy without delay.² Under increasing pressure, Ramotar finally announced that elections would be held in May 2015. The result of these elections was an historic victory for the opposition coalition, bringing to an end 23 years of rule by the governing party.

These events serve as a reminder of the colonial and post-colonial legacies that have shaped political development in Guyana to the present day. Rather than representing a break from tradition, the events of 2014 resonate with powerful echoes of the past, evoking a number of recurrent motifs in Guyana’s political history. These include, for example, subversion of the democratic process, weak adherence to democratic norms, manipulation of the constitution to serve sectional interests, the centralisation of power, intense party political and ethnic division, failure of the ruling party to acquire legitimacy outside its own constituency, the politics of confrontation, and the determinant role of external forces in shaping political outcomes. If the British and American officials critiquing Ramotar’s actions have chosen to overlook their own countries’ role in past constitutional manipulation, these facts have not been forgotten by the Guyanese – much of the coverage of 2014 directly referenced the British suspension of the constitution in 1953. The legality of Ramotar’s prorogation of parliament, however, is owed to the postindependence constitution of 1980 – an ‘authoritarian’ constitution that has not been significantly modified since the return to formal democracy in 1992. The events of 2014 thus display continuities with antidemocratic practices established in the colonial period and perpetuated after independence, and can be seen as a reflection and a product of Guyana’s incomplete consolidation of democracy in both the colonial and post-colonial state.

This chapter explores some of these continuities, examining themes of democracy and illegitimacy in the modern political history of British Guiana / Guyana. Arguing that government in Guyana has never been fully ‘representative’, it sketches the development of the nationalist movement, the rise of party and ethnic-based politics, the transition to independence, and the postindependence consolidation of one-party rule. It also considers Guyana’s experiment in ‘co-operative socialism’, the rise of an interethnic opposition movement, and the consequences of democratisation in 1992. Beginning with constitutional developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the chapter highlights patterns of exclusion, division and constitutional manipulation laid down in the colonial period and continued after the end of direct colonial rule. It is against this background that the suspension of parliament in 2014 can best be understood.

Colonial constitutions and the politics of exclusion, 1831–1947

Analyses of the development of political institutions in the British Caribbean colonies often conform to a linear narrative depicting the gradual expansion of democracy under colonial rule. In this analysis, avenues for political participation were gradually opened up as the institutional architecture and liberal democratic norms of the Westminster system were transplanted to the Caribbean: first, under the ‘old representative system’ up to 1865, which ‘laid down many of the mechanisms of the Westminster system … and established the habit of devolving responsibility from the imperial centre to the colonies’; and second, in the phase of constitutional decolonisation after World War I, which ‘tied people and politicians into an evolutionary process by which territories of the region were slowly graduated … along a series of stages towards greater self-government and eventual independence’ (Payne 1993: 58). An alternative analysis, however, emphasises the authoritarian and exclusionary character of colonial modes of rule in the British Caribbean. From this perspective, political development under British colonialism was not characterised by the gradual consolidation of norms of liberal democracy, but rather by a ‘culture of autocracy’, illegitimacy, and class domination, complicated, in plural societies, by a conscious policy of divide and rule (Hinds 2003: 351–69). As outlined below, the trajectory of political development in colonial Guiana conforms more closely to this latter analysis than to an evolutionary narrative of democratic expansion.

The first constitution of British Guiana (created in 1831 by the unification of the colonies of Demerara–Essequibo and Berbice) was ‘unique within the context of the British Caribbean’ in retaining features of the Dutch administrative, legislative and judicial system established prior to British rule (Moore 1987: 78). As Vere Daly asserts, this constitution was neither fully representative (with legislation and taxation controlled by an elected assembly), nor fully in keeping with the Crown Colony model (with control vested in the Governor and a predominantly appointed assembly), but ‘combined features of both’.³ In this hybrid system, the Governor presided over a Court of Policy consisting of five ex-officio members and five colonial members; and a Combined Court, consisting of the Court of Policy and a six-member College of Financial Representatives, the latter elected biennially by a constituency that represented less than one per cent of the total population (Moore 1987: 53–5).

Although these constitutional arrangements were unique, the distribution of political power they facilitated was all too familiar. In an economy dominated by sugar, planter interests invariably predominated in the Court of Policy and Combined Court. In the postemancipation period, these interests were secured by a number of means, including income and property qualifications for the franchise and for membership of political institutions, the creation of constituencies that favoured rural districts, and outright abuses such as manipulation of the proxy vote. Thus Brian Moore (1987: 60–1) contends that ‘the political structure of postslavery Guyana exhibited the classic characteristics of a typical plantation system – white minority dominance with state power being vested in an even smaller planter oligarchy whose political ascendancy was institutionalized’.

It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that a combination of constitutional reforms and the growth of a small black and ‘coloured’ elite began to modify this picture. Though the effects were not immediately evident, the constitution of 1891 and the introduction of the secret ballot in 1896 opened the door to a new class of political actors. Incorporation into the colonial polity, however, was limited and highly uneven. As Table 1.1 illustrates, white minority groups were grossly overrepresented in the electorate, while the Indian majority was grossly underrepresented, reflecting patterns of ethnic segmentation in the colonial economy that kept the Indian population largely confined to agricultural labour on the estates.⁴ Nevertheless, by 1915, the nascent nonwhite middle class made up the majority of the electorate; by 1927, their representatives were also the majority in the legislature, providing a limited counterweight to the powers of the Governor and Executive Council.⁵

Table 1.1 Ethnic groups as a percentage of the electorate, British Guiana, 1915

Ethnic group	As percentage of the electorate	As percentage of the adult male population
African	62.7	42.3
Indian	6.4	51.8
Portuguese	11.4	2.9
British	17.0	1.7
Chinese	2.4	0.9

Source: Compiled from figures in Lutchman 1974: 33.

These small advances were cynically reversed in 1928 when British Guiana was belatedly brought under the system of Crown Colony rule. Against the backdrop of economic crisis and a series of clashes between the colonial administration and the elected element of the Combined Court, the new constitution at once reduced the powers of the elected representatives while increasing those of the Governor and nonelected officials. In the new Legislative Council, elected members were now a minority (14 representatives) outnumbered by the Governor, his officials and nominees, while the Executive Council was entirely dominated by the Governor’s officials and nominees (with just two members nominated by the Governor from the elected segment of the legislature).⁶

As Harold Lutchman has demonstrated, ‘one of the [immediate] effects of the amended constitution was the strengthening of the already powerful position occupied by the special interests vis-á-vis the government’, with sugar and commercial interests dominating the appointments in both councils. Indeed, preferential provision for these groups was made explicit in the recommendations for constitutional change, which stated that in view of their ‘peculiar place … in the economic life of the community, the sugar planting and major commercial interests should receive special consideration when nominated members are being selected’ (Lutchman 1974: 212, 193). Pre-eminent among these sugar and commercial interests were the representatives of the British firm Booker McConnell and Company Ltd (Bookers) which by 1900 had a virtual monopoly in sugar production as well as extensive ventures in insurance, retail, manufacturing and transport, making it the single most powerful commercial entity in British Guiana.

Such a system was clearly unrepresentative in a number of ways. Ultimate responsibility lay with the imperial government, whose representative (the Governor) commanded a majority in both councils, as well as reserve powers. While the powers of the nominated element increased, conversely, the position of the elected element was considerably weakened, removing the limited control previously exercised in the legislature by the nonwhite middle class. The realignment of power clearly favoured the white minority: at a time when nonwhites made up 90 per cent of the electorate, whites dominated in both councils (see Table 1.2). Further, those nonwhite members elected or appointed to the legislature were often, as C.L.R. James so sharply satirised, ‘more royalist than the king’, ‘arguing their fitness to govern on the grounds that they constituted a Europeanised elite’.⁷ And while the 1928 constitution opened up the franchise to women for the first time, property qualifications were not altered, meaning the numbers of both women and men who qualified to vote were extremely limited – still less than three per cent of the population by 1938.

Table 1.2 Composition of the Legislative Council British Guiana, 1928, by ethnic groups

Ethnic group	Official	Unofficial (nominated and elected)	Total
White	10	8	18
Portuguese	0	3	3
Negro	1	3	4
Mixed	0	2	3
Indian	0	2	2
Chinese	0	1	1

Source: Compiled from figures in Lutchman 1974: 200.

The reversals of 1928 challenge the narrative of a gradualist expansion of democracy under colonial rule. Reforms that facilitated the limited incorporation of nonwhite elites did not fund...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Colonial legacies and post-colonial conflicts in Guyana
• 2 Democracy and political culture in Suriname
• 3 The dichotomy of universalism and particularism in French Guiana
• 4 Politics and ethnicity in the Guianas
• 5 Migrations in the Guianas: Evolution, similarities and differences
• 6 Small-scale gold mining in the Guianas: Mobility and policy across national borders
• 7 Migrants, money and might: The image of China in the Guianas
• 8 Infrastructure and regional development of the Guianas
• 9 Untapped: The energy potential of the Guianas
• Conclusion: Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana in a changing world
• References
• Index