-Florida, Irma and Guyanese
(Hoping to keep today’s offering to relative concise snippet-like size and length.)
After Forbes Burnham engineered a coalition with business tycoon D’Aguiar’s United Force and formed the ‘64-‘68 government, Cheddi Jagan could have been excused for being bitter. His People’s Progressive Party had won the highest percentage of votes in the December 1964 general election (46%) but Burnham “merged” with the UF (41% plus 12%) to imitate our version of “coalition politics” and quite legal power-grabbing. Burnham was made Premier on 14th December 1964 after which BG became independent Guyana in May 1966.
Electoral Engineering – sometimes known as rigging – dogged Burnham’s elections from 1968 through 1985. Poor Patriotic Socialist Cheddi – for most of his opposition years – 28 of them – pledged to Oppose, Expose and hopefully to Depose Burnham’s People’s National Congress government (1968-1980). Oppose and expose Jagan did but could not depose Burnham’s wily political manipulation, electoral engineering skills and vice-like grip on governmental power. It took
