In a letter last Saturday, Dr. Vishnu Bisram argued more or less successfully for the formation of alliances by small political parties and for the Guyana Elections Commission to give them as much space as possible to achieve this goal (SN:18/01/2020).
However, when it came to his reasons for wanting these parties to succeed, he went badly wrong and thus forced me to divert somewhat from the task I had set myself last week. At this election time, when the need for constitutional reform has gained enormous traction, I will venture to say that although Dr. Bisram’s position falls well within the conventional wisdom, its acceptance would solve none of Guyana’s pressing ethnic problems and would lead to another lost opportunity such as occurred during the 2001 constitutional reform process.
