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Guyana From Burnham to Hoyte
Despite concerns that the country was about to fall into a
period of political instability, the transfer of power went
smoothly. Vice President Desmond Hoyte became the new executive
president and leader of the PNC. His initial tasks were threefold:
to secure authority within the PNC and national government, to take
the PNC through the December 1985 elections, and to revitalize the
stagnant economy.
Hoyte's first two goals were easily accomplished. The new
leader took advantage of factionalism within the PNC to quietly
consolidate his authority. The December 1985 elections gave the PNC
79 percent of the vote and forty-two of the fifty-three directly
elected seats. Eight of the remaining eleven seats went to the PPP,
two went to the UF, and one to the WPA. Charging fraud, the
opposition boycotted the December 1986 municipal elections. With no
opponents, the PNC won all ninety-one seats in local government.
Revitalizing the economy proved more difficult. As a first
step, Hoyte gradually moved to embrace the private sector,
recognizing that state control of the economy had failed. Hoyte's
administration lifted all curbs on foreign activity and ownership
in 1988.
Although the Hoyte government did not completely abandon the
authoritarianism of the Burnham regime, it did make certain
political reforms. Hoyte abolished overseas voting and the
provisions for widespread proxy and postal voting. Independent
newspapers were given greater freedom, and political harassment
abated considerably.
In September 1988, Hoyte visited the United States and became
the first Guyanese head of state to meet with his United States
counterpart. By October 1988, Hoyte felt strong enough to make
public his break with the policies of the Burnham administration.
In a nationally televised address on October 11, he focused
Guyana's economic and foreign policies on the West, linking
Guyana's future economic development to regional economies and
noting that the strengthening of Guyana's relations with the United
States was ""imperative."" While these objectives were in contrast
to the policies of the past two decades, it was unclear what the
long-term political and economic results would be.
* * *
Several good books are available on Guyanese history. For the
region's early history, see Michel Deveze, Antilles, Guyanes, La
Mer des Caraïbes de 1492 à 1789, and Vere T. Daly's The
Making of Guyana. Walter Rodney's A History of the Guyanese
Working People, 1881-1905 is excellent on the colonial period.
Four books on the modern period stand out: Chaitram Singh's
Guyana: Politics in a Plantation Society; Thomas J. Spinner,
Jr.'s A Political and Social History of Guyana, 1945-1983;
Reynold Burrowes's The Wild Coast: An Account of Politics in
Guyana; and Colin Baber and Henry B. Jeffrey and Colin Baber's
Guyana: Politics, Economics and Society. (For further
information and complete citations,
see
Bibliography.)
Data as of January 1992
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