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Politics
Home » Guyana » Guyana Overview and History » PoliticsThe People’s Progressive Party (PPP) was established in January of 1950. It was the first modern political party in Guyana and was led by chairman Forbes Burnham. A man by the name of Dr. Cheddi Jagan served as second vice chairman. In the first elections allowed by the colonial government in 1953, the PPP won the majority of seats. Later that year, British troops were sent to Guyana due to fears that Jagan and the PPP were planning to make Guyana a communist state. These events led to a split within the PPP and Burnham went off and formed another party that became the People’s National Congress or PNC. In 1957 and 1961, elections were held again under an internal self-government where Jagan and the PPP came out victorious. During the early 1960s leaders from around the world, including the United States began to question the intentions of Jagan as riots and violence spread in Guyana. During a 1963 constitutional conference, the British government agreed to give Guyana (then called British Guiana) its independence only after an election was held in which proportional representation would be used. It is believed that this was mandated to limit the number of seats that the PPP would be able to win. In these (1964) elections, Forbes Burnham and the PNC gained power. Under Burnham, Guyana gained independence from British rule on May 26, 1966. It is widely believed that under Burnham’s control, elections were fraudulent, civil liberties were suppressed, and that his agents were responsible for two major political assassinations in 1980. Burnham remained in control until his death in 1985, when Desmond Hoyte of the PNC took over the presidency and slowly reversed many of Burnham’s controversial policies. In 1992, Cheddi Jagan became president during internationally supervised elections that were formally recognized as free and fair. After Jagan’s death, his widow, Janet Jagan, was elected president in 1997. In 1999, Janet Jagan resigned due to health reasons and Bharrat Jagdeo assumed the position and was re-elected in 2001.
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