It was President George H W Bush’s February 1990 Republic Day message to President Desmond Hoyte, expressing the hope that the upcoming elections will be free and fair, that signalled the end of the West’s four decade hostility to the PPP, starting in 1953. Dr Jagan had written to the US President in December 1989 seeking US support for free and fair elections in Guyana.
Earlier in 1989 Dr Jagan wrote to President Gorbachev, President of the USSR, also seeking his support. Dr Jagan had reminded President Gorbachev of the latter’s earlier support of President Bush’s demand for free and fair elections in Nicaragua, which was a friend of the USSR. Dr Jagan’s hope was that President Gorbachev would elicit a quid pro quo from President Bush for his support on Nicaragua by supporting free and fair elections in Guyana. Dr Jagan figured that with the Cold War fading, it was the opportune time for convincing the US to review its hostility to the PPP by supporting democracy in Guyana.
The new Jagan government in 1992 accepted the PNC’s Economic Recovery Programme and embraced the IMF’s stringent conditionalities. Together these offered debt relief without which Guyana could not have survived. It also opened the doors to World Bank, IDB and bilateral resources. President Jagan’s visit to the US was highly successful and the decades-long rift between the
