So long as our two large ethnic parties are able to manipulate elections to win over 50% of the votes, even the limited improvement in political accountability our kinds of societies can gain from developing into multiethnic societies, where governments arise out of ethnic group compromise, is lost. In this context, those who believe that a third force or an Amerindian party will make a political difference will have to wait a very long time: 40 years has been the promise! So far as I am concerned, given the nature of our heterogeneity, elections manipulation is an existential threat to all Guyanese and must be destroyed at its roots and my experience tells me that the roots are not to be found in what happens on an elections day. The problem is that the statement by the Indiana USA Supreme Court in the case of Pabey v Pastrick (2004) is quite appropriate to Guyana. ‘[I]t is apparent that a political subculture exists which views the political machinations at issue with a ‘wink and a smile’ and ‘business as usual.’
