Peter Stanislaus D'Aguiar ( 1912 – 30 March 1989) was a Guyanese-Portuguese businessman, conservative politician, and minister of finance from 1964 to 1967.

Business career

In 1934, following the death of his father, D'Aguiar became the managing director of the family business, D'Aguiar Bros. Ltd. The Guyanese business, which was involved in the production of rum and soft drinks, became the first in

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to bottle Pepsi-Cola in 1942. D'aguiar created Banks Breweries Ltd. in 1955, which in contrast to the family business was a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of share capital, stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter (finance), over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) co ...

. However, D'Aguiar Bros. went public in 1966 and merged with Banks Breweries Ltd. in 1969, resulting in D'Aguiar Bros. (D.I.H.) Ltd. Meanwhile, D'Aguiar formed a brewery in

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, Banks (Barbados) Breweries Ltd., which opened its doors in September 1961. This was made possible by the capital injection of over 3000 Barbadians who had purchased over 1.5 million shares in 1959. Not before long, the two businesses in Guyana and Barbados were arguing over the "Banks" brand. After 40 years of battle, they "finally came together" in 2005, bought shares in each other's companies, and agreed to a joint export strategy.

Political career

D'Aguiar unsuccessfully contested the 1953 elections in

British Guiana British Guiana was a British colony, part of the mainland British West Indies. It was located on the northern coast of South America. Since 1966 it has been known as the independent nation of Guyana. The first known Europeans to encounter Guia ...

on the slate of the National Democratic Party. D'Aguiar declined to participate in the 1957 elections, but by 1959 he was the leader of the "Defenders of Freedom", an anti-Communist group affiliated with the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. That year, D'Aguiar's group began negotiations with Forbes Burnham, the leader of the People's National Congress (PNC). According to the '' Stabroek News'', "D’Aguiar’s ambition was to contest the general elections due to be held in 1961 with his money and the PNC’s masses." The negotiations collapsed in late 1960. In August 1960, "Defenders of Freedom" came to the attention of

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officials. The Eisenhower administration was increasingly alarmed by the prospect of a

domino effect A domino effect is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a series of similar or related events, a form of chain reaction. The term is an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically refers to a linked sequence of events ...

in South America after the radicalisation of

Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...

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, and sought to nip it in the bud in British Guiana. The U.S. soon began providing D'Aguiar's network with anti-Communist material created by the U.S. Information Agency, which was shown on Georgetown street corners without attribution. On 5 October 1960, D'Aguiar formed a new political party, the United Force (UF). The party compensated for its elitism by soliciting the Amerindian vote, and went on to win 16.38% in the 1961 elections, gaining four seats on the Legislative Assembly, including D'Aguiar himself. The elections were won decisively by Cheddi Jagan's People's Progressive Party (PPP), which won the majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly, despite only winning a slim plurality of the votes. Nevertheless, the elections demonstrated that a D'Aguiar-Burnham coalition could win if the electoral system was changed to

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to any electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to political divisions (Political party, political parties) amon ...

. Also in 1961, D'Aguiar bought the ''Daily Chronicle''. D'Aguiar was prominently involved in the riots which rocked British Guiana in February 1962. A commission of inquiry sent by the British on Jagan's request found that D'Aguiar "seized every opportunity of attacking Dr. Jagan's government and inciting the crowds during the week of disturbances" and "intended to use every means of bringing down the government". The commission also called the ''Daily Chronicle''—D'Aguiar's newspaper—an "unashamed and remorseless protagonist of he United Force. Thanks in no small part to a plot imposed on the United Kingdom by the United States, new elections were held in 1964, this time with proportional representation. PNC (40.5%) and UF (12.4%) won enough to form a coalition government on 15 December 1964 which oversaw decolonisation in 1966 in which D'Aguiar became finance minister and Burnham prime minister, but they distrusted each other from the beginning. D'Aguiar resigned from the cabinet in September 1967, disgusted by Burnham's corruption. In October 1968, D'Aguiar joined hands with Jagan in walking out of the

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, prompted by Burnham's electoral fraud in preparation for the fake elections of 1968, to be held in December. D'Aguiar appeared with Jagan in a January 1969 documentary by Granada Television, ''The Making of a Prime Minister'', bewailing the fate of Guyana. D'Aguiar then retired from political life.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:D'Aguiar, Peter 1910s births 1989 deaths Finance ministers of Guyana Guyanese people of Portuguese descent Guyanese Roman Catholics 20th-century Guyanese politicians