Magic Majority

More election-day heroics

Industrial production is declining, consumer goods are in short supply, and political repression is mounting. That is not usually the kind of record that keeps incumbents secure in office. Yet in Guyana, President Linden Forbes Burnham, 57, felt more than confident that his 16-year-old regime would be returned to office in this week's national elections. As he boasted to cheering supporters of his People's National Congress party, "We are the only [party] that can produce for ourselves a 75% majority after the votes have been cast."

Indeed. Since coming to power after Guyana gained its independence from Britain in 1966, Burnham, an Oxford-trained lawyer, has often been accused of rigging his own election-day heroics. Critics claim that in 1973 he padded his first post-independence victory with the votes of 70,000 dead or nonexisting people. Guyana's army seized the ballot boxes after initial returns seemed to be turning against Burnham. When the results were announced a day later, he had won a satisfying two-thirds majority.

Under a new constitution that Guyana's rubber-stamp parliament approved in October, Burnham gained virtually limitless authority as President and Commander in Chief. Nonetheless, he called for another show of support--specifically, 75% of the electorate. Opposition candidates were not allowed to see a list of eligible voters, even after the government blithely removed more than 111,000 names, or about 20% of the electorate. There are accusations that other names have been added, including those of victims of the 1978 Jonestown massacre.

Burnham has engineered substantial flows of Western aid (including $47 million pledged in the past four years from the U.S.) by warning against the perils of a victory by his Communist rival, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, 62, who was Guyana's Premier between 1957 and 1964. Particularly helpful was a $125 million credit line approved by the International Monetary Fund last July. Burnham has also sought favor with African and Communist bloc countries by nationalizing 80% of the Guyanese economy, including bauxite mines once owned by Alcan and Reynolds Metals. Although Guyana still has close relations with Cuba, Burnham promptly dispatched his fraternal greetings to Ronald Reagan after the U.S. election. Says Cheddi Jagan's American-born wife Janet, "Burnham has cards all over the place. He is totally amoral politically."

Burnham may be playing his cards recklessly, however. Production of sugar, rice and bauxite has fallen by nearly 30% this year, while corruption and black marketeering are rampant. Despite campaign harassment, a more broadly based movement called the Working People's Alliance has replaced Jagan's People's Progressive Party as Burnham's main opposition. Three W.P.A. activists have been killed in the past year, including one of the group's leaders, Historian Walter Rodney, 38. W.P.A. members blame the deaths on Burnham sympathizers and have urged Guyanese to boycott this week's vote. Since the government has excluded the new group from the ballot, Burnham's supporters are confident of a landslide victory. "These elections are not really for us," a member of the government told a Western diplomat last week. "They are for you."

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