Guyana

The Interim Government, 1953-57

Following the suspension of the constitution, British Guiana was governed by an interim administration consisting of small group of conservative politicians, businessmen, and civil servants that lasted until 1957. Order in the colonial government masked a growing rift in the country's main political party as the personal conflict between the PPP's Jagan and Burnham widened into a bitter dispute. In 1955 Jagan and Burnham formed rival wings of the PPP. Support for each leader was largely, but not totally, along ethnic lines. J.B. Lachmansingh, a leading Indo- Guyanese and head of the GIWU, supported Burnham, whereas Jagan retained the loyalty of a number of leading Afro-African radicals, such as Sydney King. Burnham's wing of the PPP moved to the right, leaving Jagan's wing on the left, where he was regarded with considerable apprehension by Western governments and the colony's conservative business groups.

Data as of January 1992

Guyana - TABLE OF CONTENTS

• THE EARLY YEARS
• THE COMING OF THE EUROPEANS
• TRANSITION TO BRITISH RULE
• THE EARLY BRITISH COLONY AND THE LABOR PROBLEM
• ORIGINS OF THE BORDER DISPUTE WITH VENEZUELA
• POLITICAL AND SOCIAL AWAKENINGS
  • Nineteenth-Century British Guiana
  • Political and Social Changes in the 1900s
  • The Development of Political Parties
• PREINDEPENDENCE GOVERNMENT, 1953-66
  • The PPP'S First Government, 1953
  • The Interim Government, 1953-57
  • The Second PPP Government, 1957-61, and Racial Politics
  • PPP Reelection and Debacle
• INDEPENDENCE AND THE BURNHAM ERA
  • Burnham in Power
  • The Cooperative Republic
  • From Burnham to Hoyte