Guyana: Political Parties Material
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- Creator
- Institute of Commonwealth Studies
TitleGuyana: Political Parties Material
Reference codePP.GY
Date1950-
Scope and ContentManifestos, speeches, pamphlets, leaflets, letters, newsletters, journals, posters, press releases, and miscellaneous election material at national and youth levels from 1950, issued by the Alliance of Patriotic Guyanese, the British Guiana Freedom Association, the Democratic Labour Movement, the Guyana National Liberation Movement, the National Democratic Party (Guyana), the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (Guyana), the People's National Congress, the People's Progressive Party (Guyana), the Progressive Youth Organisation (Guyana), and the Working People's Alliance Guyana. The items held here deal mainly with issues of race, socialism, imperialism and democracy at but there are also materials relating to the liberalisation of Guyanese politics under Burnham's successor Desmond Hoyte and the eventual electoral triumph of Cheddi Jagan and the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 1992.
NotesThe post-war period in Guyana saw the emergence of the parties and characters that were to dominate its political scene both before and after independence in 1966. Cheddi Jagan formed the People's Progressive Party (PPP) in 1950 and was joined in this new entity by Forbes Burnham. The two were the emerging leaders of the Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese repectively, and as such gave the PPP a formidable electoral base which translated into their 1953 election victory. Despite the dismissal of this government after less than six months by the British and the Burnham's departure to form the People's National Congress (PNC) the PPP continued to hold majorities after the 1957 and 1961 polls. Further labour unrest in 1964 led to the amendment of the constitution under British auspices to allow for the introduction of proportional representation, and under this new system the PNC and conservative United Force (UF) were able to form a government after elections the same year. Burnham was to remain Prime Minister until his death in 1985, overseeing the transition to independence and governing increasingly autocratically in the face of accusations from the PPP and the emergent Working People's Alliance (WPA) of election-rigging and human rights abuses.
Conditions governing accessAccess to this collection is unrestricted for the purpose of private study and personal research within the supervised environment of the library.
Extent8 boxes
System of ArrangementAlphabetically by party, and then in rough chronological order.
Finding aidsItem-level descriptions are available on the library catalogue: http://catalogue.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/search~S17/
Related files
See also Guyana: Trades Unions Materials (TU.GY) and Guyana: Pressure Groups Materials (PG.GY), as well as Political Party, Trades Unions and Pressure Group Materials for other Commonwealth countries and material in the Institute of Commonwealth Studies library's main classified sequence. See also the Billy Strachan papers (ICS158).
Level of descriptionfonds