Elections and Political Campaigns in a Racially Bifurcated State: The Case of Guyana

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Abstract
In democratic, integrated political systems characterized by a sharing of fundamental social values and “primitive beliefs” among the population, elections serve a salutary purpose. They not only reaffirm the commitment and involvement of the citizen to the prevailing political system by the ritual act of voting participation, but simultaneously legitimize the means and processes by which political values are authoritatively allocated (Milnor, 1969: 1-2). Elections and voting “draw attention to common social ties and to the importance and apparent reasonableness of accepting the public policies that are adopted (Edelman, 1964: 3). For these reasons, elections serve to integrate the citizen into the polity.

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