National Labour Front

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The National Labour Front (NLF) was a political party in Guyana.

History

The NLF was established by Lionel Luckhoo in 1956 after a split in the United Democratic Party. [1] [2] [3] Luckhoo was persuaded to establish the party by wealthy anti-communist Indo-Guyanese, and it ran on an anti-independence platform, opposing the People's Progressive Party. [3]

In the 1957 general elections it was the only party to nominate a candidate in all 14 Legislative Council seats, [4] and had a large campaign budget. [3] The party received 12% of the vote, winning only a single seat in the North Western District constituency, taken by Stephen Campbell, [4] who became the first Amerindian member of the Guyanese parliament. [5]

The party did not run in the 1961 elections, but returned to contest the 1964 elections. However, it received only 177 votes and failed to win a seat. [6] The party did not contest any further elections. [7]

Related Research Articles

The history of Guyana begins about 35,000 years ago with the arrival of humans coming from Eurasia. These migrants became the Carib and Arawak tribes, who met Alonso de Ojeda's first expedition from Spain in 1499 at the Essequibo River. In the ensuing colonial era, Guyana's government was defined by the successive policies of Spanish, French, Dutch, and British settlers. During the colonial period, Guyana's economy was focused on plantation agriculture, which initially depended on slave labor. Guyana saw major slave rebellions in 1763 and 1823. Following the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, 800,000 enslaved Africans in the Caribbean and South Africa were freed, resulting in plantations contracting indentured workers, mainly from India. Eventually, these Indians joined forces with Afro-Guyanese descendants of slaves to demand equal rights in government and society. After the Second World War, the British Empire pursued policy decolonization of its overseas territories, with independence granted to British Guiana on May 26, 1966. Following independence, Forbes Burnham of the rose to power, quickly becoming an authoritarian leader, pledging to bring socialism to Guyana. His power began to weaken following international attention brought to Guyana in wake of the Jonestown mass murder suicide in 1978.

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Brindley Horatio Benn, CCH was a teacher, choirmaster, politician, and one of the key leaders of the Guyanese independence movement. He was put under restriction when the constitution was suspended in 1953. In 1957, Benn served as Minister of Community Development and Education in the first elected government of Guyana, and between 1961 and 1964 as Minister of Natural Resources. From 1993 to 1998, he served as High Commissioner of Guyana to Canada.

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References

  1. Colin A. Palmer (2010) Cheddi Jagan and the Politics of Power: British Guiana's Struggle for Independence, Univ of North Carolina Press, p205
  2. The all-party conferences Guyana.org
  3. 1 2 3 Odeen Ishmael (2002) Cheddi Jagan - Glimpses of an Internationalist
  4. 1 2 1957 Elections Archived 2015-06-22 at the Wayback Machine GECOM
  5. Stephen Campbell MP Guyanese Achievers
  6. Dieter Nohlen (2005) Elections in the Americas: A data handbook, Volume I, pp366-368 ISBN   978-0-19-928357-6
  7. Nohlen, p365