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Examining Lijphart'sfavourable factors forconsociational democracy:GuyanaSherwood Lowe aa Faculty of Technology , University of Guyana ,Turkeyen Campus, GuyanaPublished online: 05 Jul 2013.

To cite this article: Sherwood Lowe (2013) Examining Lijphart's favourable factorsfor consociational democracy: Guyana, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics,51:3, 362-376, DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2013.805541

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Examining Lijphart’s favourable factors for consociationaldemocracy: Guyana

Sherwood Lowe∗

Faculty of Technology, University of Guyana, Turkeyen Campus, Guyana

Since the late 1950s, the competition for state power under a Westminstermajoritarian system in Guyana between Indo-Guyanese (East Indians) andAfro-Guyanese (Africans/Blacks) has produced social conflict, politicalinstability and intermittent inter-ethnic violence. Unsurprisingly, it haslong been proposed that the country’s ethnic problem could mosteffectively be solved through the establishment of a government ofnational unity or executive power-sharing. Passions, prejudices andpolitical calculations, however, dominate the ‘academic’ debate,resulting in a research void on the applicability of power-sharing modelsto Guyana. In particular, Lijphart’s consociational democratic model hasbeen considered suitable for Guyana with only infrequent attempts toexplore its empirical and theoretical implications. This paper assesseshow Guyana measures up against Lijphart’s nine factors favourable forthe emergence and maintenance of consociational democracy,demonstrating that Guyana possesses the majority of these. This positiveoverall score suggests that a government of national unity could beviable. Nevertheless, executive power-sharing has not materialised.Some inhibiting factors are discussed.

Keywords: consociational democracy; power-sharing; winner-take-all;ethnic rivalry; national unity

Introduction: origin and nature of Guyana’s ethnic conflict

Since the 1950s in Guyana, the competition for state power under a winner-takes-all political system between Indo-Guyanese (East Indians) and Afro-Guyanese (Africans/Blacks)1 has produced social conflict, political instabilityand intermittent inter-ethnic violence. After World War II, the country’s nation-alist struggle against British colonial control was waged under a united, multi-racial front. Nationalist aspirations were organised under the People’s Progress-ive Party (PPP), a political party formed in 1950 that included leaders from the

# 2013 Taylor & Francis

∗Email: sherwood.lowe@uog.edu.gy

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 2013Vol. 51, No. 3, 362–376, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14662043.2013.805541

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country’s main racial groups. The PPP was Guyana’s first mass-based politicalparty. Its agenda called for an independent nation built on socialist principles.As Rabe (2005, p. 28) puts it, the PPP founders hoped ‘that nationalist aspira-tions, a shared sense of historical injustice, and class consciousness would over-whelm whatever ethnic, racial and religious tensions existed in the colony’sdiverse society’.

Britain by then was moving to grant Guyana limited self-government, as afirst step towards full independence. In April 1953, Guyana held its first elec-tion under universal adult suffrage. Earlier, the new 1953 constitution hadremoved the income, property and literacy qualifications for voting, therebyincreasing the electoral roll by over 70 per cent. The PPP won 18 of the 24elected seats in the House of Assembly, the lower of the two houses of the leg-islature. This strong performance allowed it to claim all six ministerial positionsin the 11-member governing Executive Council, the principle instrument ofpolicy. Intense political conflict soon developed between the unrestrainednationalist aspirations of the PPP and the actual and perceived constitutionalrestrictions on its rule (‘checks and balances’). The PPP saw the 1953 consti-tution as a sleight of hand by Britain for the ‘continued subjugation’ of theGuyanese people (Report of the British Guiana Constitution CommissionReport, 1954, p. 73).

As the PPP vented its frustration through harsh criticisms of the constitutionas well as the British Governor and the other non-elected members of the gov-erning Executive Council, the country rapidly descended into political andeconomic turmoil. In October 1953, Britain removed the PPP from govern-ment, suspended the constitution, and appointed a caretaker government. In1955, with the PPP still out of office, internal stresses within the party led toa two-way split among its ruling elite. The relationship between the party’stwo top leaders, the Indo-Guyanese Cheddi Jagan and the Afro-GuyaneseForbes Burnham, fractured mostly along their ideological and tactical differ-ences. Burnham soon after formed his own party, the People’s NationalCongress (PNC). Its formation signalled the final nail in the coffin of theinter-ethnic nationalist movement in Guyana.

In the run-up to the 1957 national election, open ethnic competition forcontrol of the state began to cloud Guyana’s political landscape. Straightappeals were made to the electorate to vote for their own race. The 1961–64period witnessed social disturbance, labour unrest and widespread ethnicclashes, as a range of opposition political forces sought to destabilise Jagan’sPPP government. Britain was forced to send troops to restore order. The1964 election, under a new proportional representation system, pushed thePPP out of power and ushered in Burnham’s PNC as the major partner of acoalition government with the capitalist-based United Force (UF) party. In1966 Guyana gained independence from British rule.

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Several objective conditions existed that may have inevitably produced theethnic antagonisms that still persist in Guyana today. For one, Burnham wasAfro-Guyanese and Jagan was Indo-Guyanese. Both were imbued with nation-alist and ideological fervour and personal ambition. Secondly, the Indo-Guyanese mass, traditionally socially and politically aloof, had developedhigher levels of social consciousness and sought greater involvement in thecountry’s affairs (Report of the British Guiana Constitution CommissionReport, 1954, p. 53). In addition, as Table 1 shows, the ethnic groups were seg-mented along occupational and residential lines. Indo-Guyanese were mostlyrural-based (58.9 per cent of the population), while Afro-Guyanese weremostly urban-based (49 per cent of the population). Indo-Guyanese weremostly employed in agriculture and benefited disproportionately from stateexpenditure on land development schemes. Afro-Guyanese had highernumbers in industry and the public service. Lastly, Afro-Guyanese outnumberedIndo-Guyanese in the security forces by a ratio of 3.7–1. The occupational andresidential segmentation of the two main racial groups created easily exploitableconditions for the politicisation of ethnicity in Guyana. For one, it made govern-ment development policy easy prey to accusations of racial discrimination.

Efforts at political (and thereby ethnic) reconciliation in the 1960s wererelentlessly undermined by the administrations in the USA and Britain.

Table 1. Occupational and residential distribution by race, per cent (Guyana, 1964).

European Portuguese Indian Black Amerindian Mixed Chinese Other

The securityforces

0.35 0.8 19.9 73.5 1.1 4.19 0.16 0

The civilservice

0.29 0.76 33.16 53.05 2.08 9.52 1.15 0

Governmentagenciesandundertakings

0.39 1.05 27.17 62.49 0.14 8.02 0.91 0

Localgovernment

0.06 0.57 49.68 38.89 0.11 10.46 0.23 0

Landdevelopment

0 0.4 85.49 13.06 0.17 0.66 0.11 0.11

Percentage ofurbanpopulation

1.22 3.78 22.13 49.0 21.72 1.81 0.34

Percentage ofruralpopulation

0.3 58.3 26.2 6.3 8 0.3 0.6

Source: Report by the International Commission of Jurists on Racial Problems in the Public Service(1965).

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Guyana’s internal political quarrel had by then taken on geopolitical dimen-sions. Cheddi Jagan was deemed a communist and likely to place thecountry fully in the international communist camp. Rabe (2005), usingprimary official documents, describes the great extent these Western powerswent to keep Jagan out of power even as part of a coalition government withthe PNC. The Guyana case stands in sharp counterpoint to the description ofexternal actors by McGarry and O’Leary (2006) as facilitators or promotersof consociational settlements.

Ethnicity in Guyana today remains highly instrumental (the contest for statepower and resources), highly psychological (the search for ethnic self-identifi-cation, and the feelings of ethnic insecurity and suspicions), and highly cultural(the clash of ethnic values, the mutual perceptions of each other, and the rivalclaims of ethnic superiority and right of ownership of the country).

Calls for national unity and power-sharing

Since the inception of ethnic politics in Guyana, the idea of a government ofnational unity or executive power-sharing has been proposed and at timesactively pursued. Several conditions have prompted the parties to negotiate(such as perceived external threats from Western powers) while, at the sameor other times, several factors have prevented the emergence of a consociationalagreement (such as external interference in the 1960s from the West, mutualmistrust among party leaders, and the death of Forbes Burnham in 1985 atthe height of then on-going power-sharing talks). Given this history, thispaper explores two questions: (i) do favourable conditions exist for the emer-gence and maintenance of consociational democracy in Guyana, and (ii) inview of the fact that no such arrangement exists in Guyana today, whatfactors prevent it from emerging? In addressing these questions, we assume(without providing the argumentation here) that political accommodationthrough a consociational arrangement is necessary for Guyana’s successfuldevelopment. We also make use of Lijphart’s model of favourable factors asthe main assessment tool to answer both questions.

Lijphart’s model: favourable factors for consociational democracy

Lijphart (1977, 1996) advances nine conditions favourable for the institutionand maintenance of consociational democracy in divided countries. Theseare: (i) no majority segment, (ii) segments of equal size, (iii) small numberof segments, (iv) small population size, (v) external threats, (vi) overarchingloyalties, (vii) socio-economic equality, (viii) geographic concentration of seg-ments, and (ix) traditional of political accommodation.

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In measuring Guyana against these factors, this paper (i) recognises that theapproach is probabilistic in nature and the factors are not sufficient in them-selves to guarantee the emergence and durability of a consociational agreement(Lijphart, 1977), (ii) takes both a snapshot view of the factors as well as a long-term view of their impact due to the fact that several factors, such as the numberof segments and external threats, can change over the medium to long term, and(iii) recognises that most of the factors are structure-oriented as opposed toactor-oriented (Schneckener, 2002, p. 211). The paper argues that it is thelatter factors that prevent the emergence of consociationalism in Guyana.

No majority segment

As Lijphart (1996, p. 262) points out: ‘[t]he most serious obstacle to powersharing in divided societies is the presence of a solid majority that, understand-ably, prefers pure majority rule to consociationalism . . .’. No racial group inGuyana enjoys a majority today. Indo-Guyanese (East Indians), however,have a clear numerical advantage. Over the last two to three decades, their pro-portion of the population has shrunk from a majority share to under 44 per cent(Table 2). In 1980, they made up 51.93 per cent of the population. But by 1991,their proportion slipped to 48.63 per cent and by 2002, to 43.45 per cent. As thecountry’s population is expected to grow only marginally by 2025 (GuyanaBureau of Statistics, 2007), the absence of a racial majority is likely toremain a permanent fixture of the population make-up.

Before drawing a conclusion of this first factor, we examine two additionalmatters. Both concern the ethnic allegiance of the Mixed and Amerindian

Table 2. Guyana’s population by race (1980–2002).

Population Percentage

2002 1991 1980 2002 1991 1980

Ethnicity/backgroundEast Indian 326,277 351,939 394,417 43.45 48.63 51.93African/Black 227,062 233,465 234,094 30.20 32.26 30.82Mixed 125,727 87,881 84,764 16.73 12.14 11.16Amerindian 68,675 46,772 40,343 9.16 6.46 5.31Portuguese 1497 1959 3011 0.20 0.27 0.40Chinese 1396 1290 1864 0.19 0.18 0.25White 477 308 779 0.06 0.04 0.10Other 112 107 294 0.01 0.01 0.04Total 751,223 723,671 759,566 100 100 100

Source: Guyana Bureau of Statistics (2007).

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populations of Guyana. Firstly, the matter of whether the ethnic allegiance ofthe Mixed population (16.73 per cent in 2002, composed mostly of Indianand African parentage) could present one of the two main segments a stableethnic majority? No study has measured the ethnic loyalties of the Mixed Guya-nese population. The Guyana Statistics Bureau (2007), however, in pointing tothe sharp increase of the Mixed population between the 1991 and 2002 cen-suses, reports that ‘. . . it is possible that the growth in the mixed population rep-resents a growing sense of separate and distinct identity by the majority ofpersons within that group’. It is widely assumed, however, that the allegianceof the Mixed population may be more toward Afro-Guyanese.

The second matter concerns the fact that PPP2 has won the last four accep-table elections by a comfortable majority (Table 3).3 This electoral performancemost likely benefitted from the support of other ethnic groups, in particular theAmerindians who, as Table 1 shows, comprised 6.46 per cent of the populationin 1991 and 9.46 per cent in 2002. The Indian political elite considers theAmerindian cross-ethnic support as providing the PPP with a secure politicalmajority. Amerindians have, however, shown a flexible voting pattern in thepast, shifting their allegiance among several political parties across severalelections.4

All things considered, the conclusion is made that Guyana does not nowhave a stable ethnic majority segment. The society can be described as pluralwith balanced competition between the two largest ethnic segments. It satisfiesthis factor for consociational democracy.

Segments of equal size

Segments of roughly equally size produce a situation where power is balancedamong them (Lijphart, 1996, p. 263). Parties are more likely to cooperate andseek compromises than in situations with segments of unequal size. As Table2 shows, the disparity in size between the two largest ethnic groups was 13

Table 3. Guyana election results, 1953–2006 (per cent votes won).

1953 1957 1961 1964 1992 1997 2001 2006

Main political partiesPPP 51 47 42.6 46 53.4 55.3 53.1 54.6PNC – 39.4 41 41 42.3 40.5 41.7 34UF – – 16.3 12 1.2 1.5 0.7 0.9Alliance for Change

(AFC)– – – – – – – 8.1

ROAR – – – – – 0.9 –GAP/ROAR – – – – – – 1.3

Source: Author’s compilation.

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per cent in 2002. We have already briefly discussed above the ethnic or politicalallegiance of the 16.7 per cent of Guyanese who identify themselves as Mixed.On this factor of consociational democracy, therefore, Guyana scores high.

Small population size

Lipjhart (1996, p. 263) reasons that a small population size is a favourable con-dition for consociational democracy because it reduces the complexity ofdecision-making or the decision load. The last official population census inGuyana in 2002 puts the country’s population at 751,223 (Table 2). Themost optimistic calculation projects the population in 2025 to be 837,511(Guyana Bureau of Statistics, 2007). This is a much smaller population thanLijphart’s classic model countries, such as Switzerland, Lebanon, the Nether-lands, and Malaysia. The Guyana case fully fulfils the size requirement for con-sociational democracy.

Geographical concentration of segments

Geographical concentration of segments serves two purposes. Concentrationprovides the opportunity to increase group autonomy through federalism (Lij-phart, 1996, p. 263). Additionally ‘the clear boundaries between the segmentsof a plural society have the advantage of limiting mutual contacts and conse-quently of limiting the chances of ever-present potential antagonisms toerupt into actual hostility’ (Lijphart, 1977, p. 88). In Guyana, the two mainethnic groups are geographically interspersed to a large extent, thus providingample opportunities for contact and, at the same time, reducing the opportunityfor territorial solutions.

For administrative purposes, the country is divided into 10 regions. Table 4shows that the largest blocks of the two main ethnic groups live in the sameregions (Regions 3, 4, 5 and 6), with Region 10 being the main exception.Ferkiss and Ferkiss (1971, p. 18) argue that contact between the main ethnicgroups is reduced in Guyana (relative to, say, Trinidad) due to the linearpattern of settlement along the coast of Guyana, where most of the populationlives. Mitigating against this, however, are such factors as the ease of travelalong the coast of the country, and the locations of public schools, places ofworship, public health centres, community markets and other similar placesthat serve catchment areas encompassing several villages of different ethnicmake-up. Contact and interaction are thus a norm. The country’s populationdistribution, therefore, does not provide much scope for territorial autonomyas a conflict resolution mechanism. On this factor of consociational democracy,Guyana scores low.

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External threats

External dangers promote internal unity. Historically, such threats haveprompted the country’s political leaders to seek national unity. Two of thebest recorded attempts at forging a coalition between Guyana’s two ethno-pol-itical parties, the PNC and the PPP, were prompted by perceived externalthreats. First, in 1976, the PNC and the PPP held coalition talks based ontheir assessment of the need to unite the country against so-called Western reac-tionary and imperialist forces. The talks however produced no agreement.Again in 1984, the then ruling PNC party initiated national unity talks withthe PPP. The PNC Leader, Forbes Burnham, believed that the country wasunder serious external threat based on his assessment of such events as theblocking of an agriculture loan for Guyana in 1981 by the Inter-AmericanDevelopment Bank, renewed hostility by Venezuela on the border issue, therecall of the US Ambassador in 1983, and, most persuasively, the 1983 USinvasion of Grenada (Majeed, 2005, p. 34). These talks lasted severalmonths but did not survive the death in August 1985 of Forbes Burnham.

Today, threats with their origin in Cold War geopolitics have long subsided.We can only point to Guyana’s border disputes with its South American neigh-bours Suriname and Venezuela as constituting a clear and present externalthreat. Venezuela claims two-thirds of Guyana’s territory (where most of itsmineral wealth is located), and Suriname roughly 6000 square miles(15,600 km2). Guyana’s successful pursuit of its territorial integrity, however,since its independence from Britain in 1966 has to a considerable degreereduced the danger these threats pose. Moreover, the bulk of the populationlives on the coastland far from border areas. Danger from across the borders,therefore, does not feature much on the country’s national consciousness andpolitical agenda. External threat as a factor favouring consociational democracyis weak in the Guyana’s case.

Table 4. Population distribution by (ethnicity and region 2002) (per cent).

Ethnicity/background

Region1

Region2

Region3

Region4

Region5

Region6

Region7

Region8

Region9

Region10 Total

African/Black

0.07 0.88 2.91 17.21 2.27 3.47 0.27 0.09 0.03 3.01 30.21

Amerindian 2.01 1.07 0.28 0.70 0.14 0.27 0.98 1.02 2.30 0.39 9.16Chinese 0.00 0.01 0.02 0.11 0.01 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.19East Indian 0.05 3.14 8.98 15.51 4.03 11.31 0.21 0.03 0.01 0.17 43.44Mixed 1.09 1.45 1.51 7.59 0.53 1.38 0.88 0.19 0.23 1.89 16.74Portuguese 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.14 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.01 0.19White 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.05Other 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01Total% 3.22 6.56 13.71 41.31 6.98 16.48 2.34 1.34 2.57 5.48 99.99Number 24,275 49,254 103,061 310,320 52,428 123,694 17,597 10,094 19,388 41,114751,225

Source: Guyana Bureau of Statistics (2007).

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Small number of groups

Guyana has six racial groups, more than 10 major religions and denominations,and several socio-economic classes. Ethnic antagonism, however, is played outmainly between the two main racial groups, the Africans and Indians. Lijphart(1969, p. 217) points out that a two-fold ethnic division could lead to instability.The incentive to compete is great, as each group believes it can attain majoritystatus. This conclusion is very applicable to Guyana. Guyana therefore does notfully fulfil this requirement for consociational democracy.

This bi-polar divide is likely to last well into the future. The two large ethnicblocks are stable and unlikely to fracture along internal cleavages. Indians,despite being religiously diverse (Muslims, Hindus and Christians) andsocio-economically dissimilar, show a high level of internal cohesion. Attemptsin the past to the split the Indian population along religious and political lineshave failed.5 Likewise, Afro-Guyanese, who are diverse along denominationsand social status, are unified as a single ethnic group. Furthermore, the othersignificant racial groups, the Mixed population and the Amerindians, showno sustained signs of political mobilisation as separate poles.

Tradition of compromise and accommodation

A good place to measure the extent to which Guyana’s two major politicalparties engage in the politics of compromise and accommodation would bethe parliamentary debates on the national budget. As the budget covers theentire range of government business, it constitutes the process with the mostopportunity for cross-party dialogue and compromise in and out of parliament.The national budget process in Guyana is marked by straight government diktat.Little or no attempt is made to incorporate the views or concerns of other pol-itical stakeholders and budgets are normally passed without the support ofopposition parties. Likewise, divisive politics marks the passage of mostother government legislation. Outside the parliamentary process, recent inter-party engagements have produced noteworthy agreements and arrangements.6

Agreements, however, deliver little on the ground as they are quickly consumedby Guyana’s rancourous political relations and winner-takes-all culture. Guyanascores unfavourably on this factor of consociational democracy.

Overarching loyalties

Several cohesive or unifying forces in Guyana can be singled out: (i) the pres-ence of a common language, English, as a means of communication among theentire population, (ii) the growth of creolisation as a common culture, and (iii) asingle and uniform national education system. These factors serve to integrate

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the Guyana society. That said, whether Guyanese share a single dominantnational consciousness or identity remains an open question. If we look tocross-cutting cleavages or overlapping membership in the Guyana society asforces of integration, the two likely candidates are religion and socio-economicclass. The 2002 Guyana census reports that approximately 60 per cent of Guya-nese describe themselves as Christians, 28.4 per cent as Hindus and 7.2 per centas Muslims. The arithmetic would suggest 8–9 per cent of Indians are Chris-tians. On the religious front, therefore, overlapping membership is low. Onthe socio-economical ladder, a greater degree of overlap exists among theraces, but no group consciousness is manifested. Guyana scores unfavourablyon this factor of consociational democracy.

Historically, overarching unifying factors, especially among Guyana’s pol-itical elite, have played a big role in enhancing national unity. The post-warnationalist movement for independence from Britain, described earlier, is acase in point. In addition, in the power-sharing talks between the two largeparties in 1976 and 1984–85, the fact that both the PNC and PPP shared thesame socialist/communist ideology was seen as providing the basis for over-coming their ethnic rivalry (Majeed, 2005, p. 37).

Absence of large socio-economic differences

Lijphart (1996, pp. 262–263) considers socio-economic equality among indi-viduals and groups as one of the two most important conditions in institutingand maintaining consociational democracy. Large disparities may endangerthe chances of maintaining a consociational arrangement.

The two main races are similar in socio-economic terms in several ways: (i)they are similarly internally stratified, spreading from low to high incomeclasses; (ii) they experience similar levels of poverty, as shown in Table 5;

Table 5. Poverty by (ethnic group, 1993, 1999) (per cent of pop.).

Year

1993 1999

Ethnicity/backgroundEast Indians 33.7 31.3Blacks 43.0 28.8Mixed 44.7 44.4Amerindians 87.5 86.5Others N.A. 25.0Guyana 43.2 36.4

Source: World Bank (1994) and Guyana Bureau of Statistics (2000).

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and (iii) they have equitable access to government services such as health, socialwelfare and education. In a study of inequality and poverty in Guyana, Gafar(2004, p. 73) concludes that ‘economic growth in Guyana is poverty reducingfor all income (consumption) levels and for all races’ and no significant corre-lation exists between poverty and race, in particular the two main races.

Indians do, however, dominate the business sector in Guyana and ostensi-bly number more among the country’s multi-millionaires. This dominance iswidely perceived, however, as mostly due to innate proclivities and not to injus-tices against other races. It is thus not a significant bone of contention. Otherethnic groups, in particular Afro-Guyanese and Amerindians, continue tomake calls for a equitable allocation of state resources such as government con-tracts, subventions and wages. Perceived or actual disparities in the distributionof state resources remain a major source of ethnic antagonism in Guyana.Because the two main ethnic groups share similar socio-economic conditions,especially in the low to medium income classes, Guyana scores high on thisfavourable factor.

Quantitative analysis of favourable factors

Table 6 follows a scoring scheme used by Lijphart to provide a single index formeasurement of the favourable factors.

The scores in the case of Guyana have been assigned on the followinggrounds: (1) On the first factor, Guyana receives favourable rating because ithas no majority ethnic group. We do not assess the Indian/Amerindian electoralsolidarity as durable; (2) On the second factor, it also receives favourable ratingdue to roughly equal size of its main racial segments; (3) On the third factor,while the country has only a few ethno-political segments with little to nopossibility of further ethnic cleavages, it gets a low favourable score because

Table 6. Favourable factors for consociational democracy, Guyana.

Favourable factors Scores Test for bias

No majority segment 2 2Segments of equal size 1 1Small number of segments 1 2Small population size 2 2External threats 21 22Overarching loyalties/cohesive forces 21 22Socio-economic equality 1 0Geographic concentration of segments 0 0Traditional of political accommodation 21 22Total score 4 1

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they are only two segments; (4) On the fourth factor, it gets most favourablerating because of its population of around 3

4 million people, with small prospectsfor a rapid population increase; (5) On level of external threat, Guyana receivesan unfavourable rating because of the relative dormancy of the territorial claimsof its neighbours; (6) On of the sixth factor, it receives a most unfavourablerating because of the weakness or absence of unifying forces; (7) On socio-economic equality, it receives a strong favourable rating due to the similarsocio-economic stratification and poverty levels among races; (8) On theeighth factor, it gets neither a favourable nor unfavourable rating becausewhile the two main ethnic groups are moderately to weakly geographically con-centrated, they interact to a great extent; (9) On the ninth factor, it obtains anunfavourable score due to the poor record of political compromise.

To test the sensitivity of the overall score to changes in the award of theindividual ratings, the negatives scores are maximised (to 2) and the positivescores reduced to 1 for those factors possessing a higher degree of subjectivityor inadequate data for their quantification. These are factors 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9.Guyana’s score is positive even after performing a small test to cater for sub-jective rating. A score of four compares favourably with Switzerland (+8),Belgium (+1), Lebanon (+2), South Africa (+1) and Malaysia (0), asscored by Lijphart, and (23) for Pakistan (Muhammad et al., 2011).

What factors inhibit the emergence of consociational democracy inGuyana today?

Lijphart (1977, p. 54) admits that his factors are not sufficient in themselves. Inaddition, most of the nine factors are structure-oriented as opposed to actor-oriented. It is, after all, the political elites of the warring factions that have toagree to sit at the negotiating table. Schneckener (2002, pp. 214–217) identifiesseveral actor-oriented factors that help to promote consociationalism, amongthem the presence of dominant elites in the country. In this regard, the twomain parties in Guyana have always acted independently of their followers.Guyanese (even those who are formal members of parties) concede most ofthe political decision-making space to their party leaders. Mass opposition tomulti-party agreements is not part of political practice. Guyana thereforescores high on this factor.

Other actor-oriented factors, however, prevent the emergence of consocia-tionalism in Guyana. We identify some of the main ones as: (i) the belief amongelite of the two main parties that they can obtain and retain an electoral majorityindefinitely through cross-over ethnic support. They thus remain wedded to themajoritarian model; (ii) the absence of statesmanship among the political classin Guyana. In this regard, Mars (2001), in reviewing the last few decades ofethnic conflict in Guyana, finds fault with the political culture of

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authoritarianism among the political elite for the recurrent failure of efforts atthe time to find resolution through negotiations; and (iii) the belief amongthe Indian political leadership that, while a consociational arrangement couldreadily be applied to the executive arm of government, the practical difficultyin extending any proportionality principle to the security forces and the publicservice would put Indians at a serious disadvantage. The perceptions andmotivations of Guyana’s political elites therefore remain a serious obstacle toa consociational future for the country.

In an earlier draft of this paper, we predicted that ‘should no party win anelectoral majority in the country’s next election, scheduled for late 2011, themajor political parties will be more willing to discuss the idea of forming a gov-ernment of national unity’. As matters actually turned out, the results of theNovember 2011 election led, for the first time in Guyana, to a minority govern-ment, with the joint opposition controlling a parliamentary majority. In the 11months since, how has our earlier prediction fared? Not well. The country is nocloser to a consociational democracy. Key political leaders in the major partiesremain wedded to the majoritarian model. One critical factor that has not mate-rialised as expected is a forceful post-election push for a unity government bythe main opposition party, APNU (A Partnership for National Unity). In thepre-election period, APNU had campaigned under this theme and describedpower-sharing as one of its founding philosophical pillars. The fact that theparty rarely trumpets this cause anymore calls into question its fundamentalcommitment to the idea.

The Guyana case, therefore, casts credible doubt on the predictive power ofLijphart’s consociational model. Are the favourable factors identified in thetheory not well established in Guyana? Or is Lijphart’s model good politicalscience but not necessarily compulsive politics? The now common politicalcrises and upheavals since Guyana’s most recent general election in November2011 suggest the latter.

AcknowledgementsI wish to thank the anonymous CCP reviewers who peer reviewed the paper and toacknowledge CCP’s editorial support.

Notes1. The terms Afro-Guyanese (for Africans/Blacks) and Indo-Guyanese (for East

Indians) are the preferred terms in this paper. We, however, at times use thebracketed terms where necessary for ease of reference.

2. These two main parties in Guyana have since the 1990s formed alliances with othersmaller parties and civic groups and have undergone minor name changes to reflectthis, the PNC more so. The PPP is now the PPP/C (People’s Progressive Party/

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Civic). The PNC has been refashioned first as PNCR (People’s National CongressREFORM) and later as PNCR-IG (People’s National Congress REFORM-OneGuyana). For simplicity, this paper uses only the acronyms PPP and PNC.

3. Elections between 1968 and 1992 are widely considered to have returned fraudulentresults and are not considered in this analysis.

4. Since the 1960s, the Amerindians have spread their votes mainly among the PPP,the PNC and the pro-business party, The United Force (TUF). They have alsogiven their support to smaller parties, such as the Guyana Action Party (GAP).

5. A Muslim-based party, GUMP (Guiana United Muslim Party), failed to gain a seatin the 1964 election, despite external financial and other support. The Hindu-basedparty, ROAR Guyana (Rise, Organise, and Rebuild Guyana) in its strongestshowing at the polls in 2001, received 3400 votes (0.9 per cent).

6. Examples include the Hermandston Accord of 1997 and the Saint Lucia statement of2001, both of which included a strong component for constitution reform. Both weretriggered by post-election unrest and violence and were mediated by the CaribbeanCommunity (CARICOM). While the Hermandston Accord led to significant reformsof the country’s 1980 constitution, the majoritarian framework was left intact.

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