A GOVERNMENT must work to secure maximum happiness for the largest number of its people, as John Stuart Mill would say. This assertion is particularly important for those multiethnic societies grounded in democratic principles. Violations of this affirmation in multicultural societies would most certainly lead to ethnic insecurities. However, feelings of ethnic insecurities are not synonymous with racism.

Guyana, a plural society, is plagued by political manipulation of the ethnic and race card, mainly at election times by the losing party. The People's Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) that won the March 19 national elections, is perceived by the People's National Congress/Reform (PNC/R) Party and some African Guyanese intellectuals, as not working in the interests of African Guyanese. The PNC/R's position is that African Guyanese have been marginalised since 1992 by the PPP/C Government. The evidence, however, suggests otherwise. Let me say that both African and East Indian working class people were victims of marginalisation in the peak years of the Burnham/Hoyte era. The bottom line seemingly for the PNC/R is that African Guyanese are marginalised because of racial discriminatory practices effected by the PPP/C Administration. Some political commentaries suggest that the proposed solution to African Guyanese marginalisation is power sharing.

The perceived PPP/C practices of racial discrimination against African Guyanese, inevitably, would have placed them in the ranks of the total social and economically disadvantaged. But the social reality shows a different portrait for African Guyanese.

In an evidentiary sense, both East Indian and African Guyanese have comparable socioeconomic status (SES), their SES being collectively indexed through education, occupation, and income. At each tier of the class structure, both groups in relation to their population proportions, are well represented in education, occupation, and income.

Passes at the Secondary Schools Entrance Examination (SSEE) show both East Indian and African Guyanese dominating the success picture. Both have comparable rates of high school attendance and graduation from high school. A larger number of African than East Indian Guyanese graduate from the University of Guyana. In the case of occupation and incomes, African Guyanese dominate the upper echelons of the public service to which they have traditionally gravitated. At each layer of the class structure and given East Indian and African Guyanese proportions in the population, household incomes of both groups are comparable. In effect, their proportionality of incomes is about the same in the class structure.

The SES of an East Indian Guyanese largely determines his/her class position in the society. For instance, an East Indian Guyanese with a low SES will have a low class position, and vice versa. The same line of argument holds for African Guyanese, or any other ethnic group. If we agree that both groups have comparable SES, then this comparability does dilute the marginalisation argument, as marginalisation, by definition, will provide access to resources for one group and not to the other. Again, if African Guyanese are victims of large-scale institutional discrimination, then their SES would be considerably lower than that of East Indian Guyanese. But this is not the case.

Why then is this sudden surge of interest in power sharing? Indeed, it is not intended to assist African Guyanese to share in the social and economic rewards of the society. Their acquisition of these resources is comparable to East Indian Guyanese within the existing social stratification system. Then, if not low SES, it must be ethnic insecurities projected by African Guyanese, according to the power-sharing messiahs. Subsequently, these ethnic insecurities become falsely transformed into racism against African Guyanese. Yes, there are some serious social problems in the society, but these problems are experienced by all Guyanese in indifferent ways according to their location in the class structure. For instance, poverty is experienced not only by one ethnic group.

Commentaries in alluding to racism in Guyana, must provide evidence as to how the comparable SES of both major ethnic groups, is affected by racial discrimination. If African Guyanese were profoundly discriminated against, then their comparable SES would hardly have been a reality.

Let's address the source of the ethnic conflict, after all it is the ethnic conflict and violence that drive the preponderance of power-sharing proposals. PNC/R protests during and after the March 19 national elections, are not an indicator of race problems in Guyana, but a response to their perceived long-term electoral vulnerability. The source of the perceived ethnic conflict is political, and relentlessly manipulated and pursued by opposition forces. After the elections, this ethnic conflict retires into protracted hibernation. Given a comparable SES for both major groups, political manipulation of the ethnic card, and politically-induced ethnic insecurities, why power sharing? These givens make power sharing impractical in the context of Guyana because many of the power-sharing messiahs need to review the social and economic conditions of all ethnic groups at each level of the class structure in Guyana. In any case, let's examine the problematics of power sharing amid claims of an ethnically-divided Guyana.

Some parts of the political spectrum already have made a pronouncement that Guyana is ethnically divided, and in a logically sequential way, has engaging proposals to address this ethnic conflict. Seemingly, ethnic separatism or separate ethnic development through a federalist structure is advanced as a mechanism to sustain each ethnic group's interests. Notwithstanding the subsistence benefits emanating from a federal system, the fact that a particular ethnic group will secure political and economic control over each proposed federal division, violates the principles of multiethnicity and pluralism. This proposal advocates separate ethnic development!! Shades of ethnic separateness and federalism are not new phenomena for Guyana, and quite rightly, were removed from political discourses over the years. Again, the federal structure in the U.S., of which the current proposal on federalism for Guyana is a prototype, has not considerably reduced race and ethnic conflict and violence in that country. It needs to be pointed out, too, that American federalism has not been ethnically-determined, inasmuch as the Guyana proposed federal structure is anchored in ethnicity.

Another proposal bandied around to apparently smooth out the ethnic conflict is a national front government; this proposal, essentially, is about power sharing. According to Sisk (1996), power sharing refers to practices and institutions that produce broad-based governing coalitions inclusive of all major ethnic groups; power sharing, therefore, has the capacity to preserve multiethnic conditions through ethnic self-determination and not through ethnic separatism. Power sharing works toward promoting multiethnicity, while ethnic separatism (separate development), by definition, works toward diluting multiculturalism. It, therefore, is paradoxical for some politicians to call for separate development for ethnic groups through the federal structure, and at the same time, advocate for power sharing vis-à-vis a national front government.

Any power sharing scheme must be rooted in the assent of the people. A useful starting point, then, may be to seek a referendum from the electorate to ascertain their feelings on this issue. Both major political parties, the PPP/Civic and the PNC, have rejected power sharing. They both claim that their party membership is gradually becoming plural which is a healthy development for Guyana's politics.

The application of Proportional Representation (PR) already affords the smaller parties representation in the National Assembly; without PR, the TUF and AFG, in 1997, and now in 2001, the WPA/GAP, TUF, and ROAR would not have found a seat in the National Assembly. Under PR, seats in the National Assembly are apportioned on the basis of the proportion of votes received. If a party fails to acquire significant votes in the current power-sharing PR electoral system, how then can it request a greater voice in the executive branch of the Government? Keep in mind that parliamentary democracy is based on the assent of the governed.

It's quite easy for bureaucratic power sharing to discreetly replace the people's voice institutionalized through elections. In the final analysis, we have to know, too, whether the politicians relentlessly striving for power sharing are really the representatives the people want for sharing particular slices of power. In addition, we need to know whether they are genuine representatives of the constituents they claim to represent. If this is the case, then let the people through a referendum determine their support/non-support for power sharing.