In the eyes of Presidential Candidate for the A New and United Guyana (ANUG), Ralph Ramkarran, the major issue facing Guyana’s politics is the “conscious or unconscious struggle” by the major political parties—the APNU+AFC Coalition Party and the People’s Progressive Party (PPP)— for ethnic dominance.
In his most recent writings, Ramkarran opined that this struggle permeates the core of major parties, thereby reflecting the fault lines of the society.
The Presidential candidate said, “The lessons of the early years on the People’s Progressive Party which recognized this issue, and structured the PPP to take account of it, has been lost or ignored. The reason that several small parties are advocating constitutional reform is to address this serious problem that is fundamental to Guyana’s future. Unless this complex problem is resolved, Guyana’s toxic politics, characterized by gridlock, will continue indefinitely and the small parties recognize this.”
Further to this, the former House Speaker expressed that these issues will be placed before Guyanese with various degrees of intensity over the coming weeks, depending on the resources that small parties have available to campaign. Ramkarran proffered that the traditional view is that small parties are usually squeezed out by the large parties. While this may be so historically, he reminded that the Alliance For Change (AFC) was able to break through as a result of dissatisfaction with the large parties.
Ramkarran said, “It could well be that with the important issues facing the electorate at these elections, one or more of the small parties can have a breakout moment. That will once again transform Guyana’s politics, as the emergence of the AFC did, except that on this occasion, it is hoped that at least one change will be a new governance structure involving the major parties.”
This he believes is critical to Guyana’s progression.
