Jagan's Comeback

History was coming full circle in the poverty-ridden crown colony of British Guiana last week. Four years ago, in the country's first general election, Communism-spouting Cheddi B. Jagan, a suave, U.S.-educated East Indian dentist (Northwestern University, '43), startled the complacent British by sweeping into office. The followers of his People's Progressive Party shouted, "We guv'ment!", and Jagan boasted that they would shoot their "oppressors." Six months later, 700 British troops and three warships deposed Chief Minister Jagan, suspended the colony's constitution. Next week, under a cautiously revised constitution, the colony's 200,000 voters will again go to the polls. The overwhelming favorite to win from six to eight of the 14 Legislative Council seats: Jagan and his P.P.P.

Jagan's P.P.P. is favored in the battle of four leftish parties largely because the British gave him two major assists. First, they booted him out of office in 1953 before the people could be disillusioned at his lack of an overall program and his patent lack of administrative ability. Says one rival politician: "He should have been allowed enough rope to hang himself." Thus, to the voters, Jagan is still a martyred hero. Then, after belatedly setting up an $84 million emergency-aid program to quiet rising discontent, the British ruined the effect by slowing down expenditures.

Starting with these advantages, Left-Winger Jagan, 39, is acting like a moderate as he campaigns with his wife Janet, once a Chicago Young Communist Leaguer. He denies that he is a Communist, although government officials are convinced he keeps in close touch with the Kremlin. He talks of forming a postelection coalition with a former ally, Forbes Burnham, 36, a mercurial Negro lawyer with Communist leanings of his own, whose splinter wing of the P.P.P. may win up to four seats.

If Jagan wins handily and switches back to his old Red line, Sir Patrick Renison, the Queen's governor, can appoint as many as 14 additional members to the Council, and thus cancel out Jagan's power without the face-losing last resort of calling in the troops. But Renison hopes to be able to persuade Jagan to set up a moderate government that can start easing the colony down the road to self-rule. Jagan claims that he is anxious to please. "I am a realist," he says soothingly. "The British government can still exercise full control even though internal self-government is conceded."

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