ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 18, No 2, pp 267± 285, 1997 Political change,democracy, and humanrights in Guyana IVELAWL GRIFFITH Theannals of Guyana’ s politicalhistory will surely record 1992 as anhistoric year,for that year was amilestonein thetransition from authoritarian politics to democraticpolitics. Also signi® cant was theemergence from the political wildernessof Cheddie Jagan. Having ® rst enteredpolitics in 1946, Jagan was oustedfrom power by the British in 1953, and again in 1964, in collusion with theUSA, because of his communist orientation. Ironically, though, it was the USAitself that helped to engineer his return to power in 1992. The circum- stances thatled to the re-emergence of Jagan, and his re-emergence itself, have usheredin a newera inGuyanese politics, one which spotlights the triumphs andpitfalls of democracy and human rights in South America’ s onlyEnglish- speakingrepublic. Politicalanalysts accept that the status and conduct of both democracy and humanrights in various parts of the world are in¯uenced by the nature and operationof the political regime governing a particularsociety. With this in mind,this article examines the relationship between regime change and democ- racyand human rights in Guyana. The analysis shows that there has beenboth changeand continuity over the past decade; change in regime and regime politicsand policies, and continuity in regime policies that conditioned the environmentto pursuedemocracy. In Guyana, the constitution and the approach ofpolitical elites incorporate civil and political rights as wellas economicand socialones. However, given the link between the attainment of the latter set of rightsand the economic health of society on the one hand, and Guyana’ s economicdoldrums on the other, it is unreasonableto expect any major near-termadvancement in economic and social rights. Democracyand human rights in context FollowingSchmitter and Karl, democracy is usedhere to mean a system of governancewhere rulers are heldaccountable for their actions by citizens, acting throughcompetition and cooperation of their elected representatives. 1 This approachgoes beyond the formalistic, institutional approach, which de® nes democracyessentially as electoraldemocracy. 2 Electionsare centralto democ- racy.But because they are periodiccontestations where interest aggregation and representationare centredaround individual candidates or political parties, it is IvelawL Grif® this attheDepartment of Political Science, Collegeof Arts andSciences, DM483University Park, Miami,FL 33199,USA. 0143-6597/97/020267-19$7.00 Ó 1997Third World Quarterly 267 IVELAW LGRIFFITH importantto extend the de® nition of democracy to participation and policy choiceon a continualbasis andoutside parties, through interest groups and other socialmovements. Electionsconstitute a criticallegitimising mechanism in democracies. Hence, theyare necessary,and they need to be free andfair. But as LarmanWilson noted,` Toooften there is apreoccupationwith elections and ª procedural democracyº, andthe assumption that if theyare free,that is tantamountto being democraticor havinga democracy’. 3 Itis unrealisticto use electionsas thesole measure ofdemocratic strength. Douglas Payne, formerly the top Latin America andCaribbean analyst at Freedom House, is quiteright in observing:` Toassume thatelections alone are anaccurate gauge of the health of democracy is naive at best’ .4 Thus,for this writer democracy must provide for the exercise of civil andpolitical rights unencumbered by instrumentsof state coercion, whether with force,such as throughmilitary or police agencies, or without force, such as throughpartisan or corrupted judiciaries. A democraticenvironment must, therefore,re¯ ect the following: scope for political participation, central to which are free andfair elections; access todecision makers andinstitutions of government;responsiveness by political rulers; functionalcourts; and uncen- soredmedia. Humanrights thinking in Guyana, as re¯ected in domestic legal instruments, statementsby political leaders, and charters of human rights non-governmental groups,has beenin¯ uenced by both liberal and communalist thinking. 5 More- over,the approach to human rights is aninclusive one, encompassing civil and politicalrights as wellas economicand social rights. As mightbe expected,over theyears sinceindependence in 1966, there have been changes in emphasis amongthe various categories of rights, re¯ ecting shifts in the focus of the internationalcommunity, and domestic political and economic struggles. Central tothe nature and conduct of these struggles has beenthe nature and scope of politicalchange. Political change Onetypology of political regimes that explains political change in developing countrieslike Guyana is thatused by Joe Hagan.It describes ® vekinds of regimesalong a spectrumof close cohesion through to high fragmentation: dominanceby a singleindividual; dominance by a singlecohesive party with established,autonomous bureaucracies and institutions; dominance by a single partywith factional divisions; power sharing by arulingparty with one or more minorparties or groups; and no clear dominant group or a coalitionof autonomousgroups. 6 Irrespectiveof which regime typology is used,though, regimechange can be detected by observing the dynamics of the various domesticpolitical arenas, among them the cabinet, the legislature and the politicalparty of the regime leader(s). Alongwith his typology of regimes, Hagan developed a typologyof regime change.Under his schema, a TypeI regimechange is limitedto the removal or resignationof a toppolitical leader, but one who is notthe effective head of state.A TypeII changeinvolves a changein the effective head of state, but no 268 POLITICAL CHANGE INGUYANA changein thebasic political composition of theruling group. Regime change of thethird type involves adjustments in the mix of groups or factions that comprisethe ruling coalition, but that do notalter the essential political make-up ofthe regime. Type IV changeis whereone political group or set ofgroups is replacedby another, through routinised, constitutionally sanctioned procedures. The® naltype of regime change is wherethe entire ruling group is forcedfrom of®ce byanother group through illegal or irregularmeans, such as a coup d’ Âetat.7 Overthe past 12 years Guyanahas experiencedthree sets ofregime change. Usingthe Hagan approach, the death of ForbesBurnham on 6 August1985 led toa TypeII change,involving change of the effective head of state, but no changein thebasic composition of theruling People’ s NationalCongress ( PNC). HughDesmond Hoyte, Burnham’ s PrimeMinister and First Vice President, was identi®ed as successor toBurnham by a jointmeeting of the PNC’ s Central Committeeand the Cabinet within two hours of Burnham’s death.Hoyte became simultaneously PNC leaderand state president, passing over Ptolemy Reid, deputyleader and a formerprime minister, as wellas RandiChandisingh, PNC GeneralSecretary. The new regime pledged continuity at the party congress held twoweeks after Burnham’ s death,with Hoyte declaring ` Theleadership of the partyis pledgedto continue his [Burnham’ s] work’. 8 Withpresidential and parliamentary elections constitutionally due within sevenmonths of his accession to the presidency, Hoyte took the opportunity to `renew’the mandate of the PNC underhis stewardship, in elections held on 9 December1985. Guyana went through the motions of legitimacy without any realcorrelation between popular choice and political empowerment. As Perry Mars explained,Guyana’ s post-independenceelections have been less about choiceor changeof governmentthan a kindof nationalritual where contending partiesdramatise their particular mobilisation strategies. In that context, the rulingparty demonstrates its peculiar style of `neverloosing’ , ifnot necessarily `winning’, popularelections; opposition parties generally experiment with differ- entcombination tactics designed to demonstrate their popular appeal based on voterturnout at campaign meetings, rather than at theusually controversial polls. Inthis situation, ` thecampaign is thething, the elections a predictableanti- climax’ .9 UnderGuyana’ s electoralsystem, presidential and parliamentary elections are combined,and the leader of theparty with the largest parliamentary representa- tionbecomes president, having been earlier designated the presidential candidate andhead of the party list of candidates. There are 65seats inthe unicameral legislature,but only 53 are contesteddirectly. This is doneusing the list system ofproportional representation. Each of the 10 Regional Development Councils (RDCs) electsone representative for the Assembly, and the remaining two are identi®ed by the National Congress of Local Democratic Organs ( NCLDO). Electionsfor regional representation in the National Assembly and within the RDCsare alsoheld at the same time. 10 The1985 elections were contested by sevenpolitical parties, and according to the Elections Commission, the agency establishedunder the constitution to supervise national and local elections, the PNC won42 of the 53 directly contested National Assembly seats. The PNC was thus` returned’to power. 11 269 IVELAW LGRIFFITH Thecircumstances described above would seem ostensiblyto constitute continuityrather than change. However, for reasons explainedbelow, those circumstancesset thestage for a typeof regime change, which, modifying the Hagantypology, could be called Type VI regime change: where the dominant individualruler alters the