Early times and colonization
The first residents of Guiana immigrated to the region around the first millennium BC. It is believed that the Warrau Indians were the first and later followed by the Arawak and Caribbean tribes.
Christopher Columbus sighted the Guiana coast in 1498 and Spain claimed the land. However, the Spaniards avoided the so-called wild coast between the Amazon and Orinoco, and so it was the French, Dutch and English who occupied and occupied the lands of Guiana (not to be confused with today’s Guyana) during the 16th and 17th centuries. The individual regions of the region frequently changed owners and it was not until the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and the Treaty of London in the early 19th century that the national territories were still valid today. Guyana came under British ownership as British Guyana, Suriname was awarded as Dutch Guyana to Holland and French Guiana was granted colonialism to France.
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The path to independence
In 1931 British Guiana became a crown colony. The first political groups were founded in the country from the 1920s. This included the first union in the Caribbean, from which the PPP (People? S Progressive Party) of the Indian Cheddi Jagan emerged in 1950. From 1953 to 1964 the Indian Jagan ruled the country. But he came under suspicion of communism and the PNC (People’s National Congress) split off under the leadership of the African Forbes Burnham. In 1961, the Crown Colony became self-governing, and in 1964 Burnham, led by the British electoral system to defend another election for Indian-born Jagan, succeeded in becoming the prime minister of a coalition government. In 1966, Guyana became independent within the Commonwealth, and in 1970 became a republic. Together with Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, the country founded the Caribbean Common Market (CCM for Caribbean Common Market). With domestic political repression measures and targeted manipulation of elections, Burnham was able to remain in power until 1985 despite social unrest. In 1986, Desmond Hoyte, another PNC chairman, succeeded him as prime minister.
Latest developments
With the global political upheavals at the end of the 1980s, Guyana’s socialist and cooperative course towards a market economy began to change. In October 1992, the former head of government and leader of the opposition PPP, Jagan, became the new prime minister. He moved to the office of president in 1997 while S. Hinds became the new prime minister, but died shortly afterwards. According to AbbreviationFinder, S. Hinds temporarily became the new president and appointed Jagan’s widow, Janet Jagan, an American, as the new head of government. In the December elections, Janet Jagan was elected President and again appointed S. Hinds as head of government. However, riots broke out after the elections and the losing Hoyte questioned their legality. Hoyte’s party was supported in the majority by the approximately 40% of voters who are of African origin, whereas Jagan’s party represented the majority in the country, which is of Indian origin. The dispute could only be resolved through an agreement between the two parties to hold two years early elections.
Before this deadline, however, Janet Jagan resigned in August 1999 and the former finance minister Bharrat Jagdeo was sworn in as the new president. He was also confirmed in office in the March 2001 and 2006 elections. Jagdeo is undergoing economic reforms, particularly affecting the ineffective public sector, and restructuring in the mining industry; nevertheless large parts of the population still live below the poverty line. Public security could not be improved. On the contrary, violent crime increased significantly from the end of 2007. In 2007, the sea border conflict with Suriname, which had been going on for decades, resulted in a ruling by the International Maritime Court in 2007, dividing the sea area between the two countries.
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The People’s Progressive Party (PPP), largely elected by Indian people, has been in power consistently since the 1992 elections and provided the presidents. It won in the November 2011 parliamentary elections but missed the absolute majority with only one vote. The government (since 2011 President Donald Ramotar, PPP, head of government still Samuel Hinds) and the opposition-dominated parliament have been in constant conflict since then.