British Guiana Labour Union, and was elected to Georgetown City Council in 1953. In the 1953 British Guiana general election on 27 April 1953, the PPP won 18 of 24 seats in the first election with universal suffrage in Guyana, with both Burnham and his sister Jessie elected to the House of Assembly. In the short-lived PPP government that followed, Burnham served as Minister of Education. Burnham initially threatened to split the party if he were not made sole leader of the PPP, but a compromise was reached by which Burnham and his allies in the party received ministerial appointments. The newly-formed government began to dissent against colonial rule, refusing to send a delegation to the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, urging strike action and repealing several laws which the Colonial Office wanted in place. This dissent took place during the Red Scare, and British statesmen were worried about a possible communist revolution in Guyana; Winston Churchill remarked that "(W)e ought surely to get American support in doing all we can to break the Communist teeth in British Guiana … (P)erhaps they would even send Senator McCarthy down there." On 9 October 1953, the British administration suspended the Constitution of British Guiana and sent in armed troops after the PPP government passed the Labour Relations Act (modelled on the Wagner Act) the day before, marking the end of the PPP government. Burnham and Jagan would travel to London to unsuccessfully protest the decision, where they were subject to secret surveillance by British intelligence services. Following this, Burnham and Jagan travelled to India in an unsuccessful attempt to find support for their cause against the British. The interim government appointed by the British would last until 1957. During the suspension of the constitution, the interim government gave Burnham fewer restrictions than other senior members of the party, he was not imprisoned while the other senior members were, and he was given tacit encouragement to begin a breakaway faction within the party, which he would do two years later. 1955–1964: Leader of the People's National Congress (PNC) Origins of the People's National Congress At a conference at the Metropole Cinema in Georgetown on 12–13 February 1955, the PPP split into two factions, one led by Burnham ("Burnhamite") and the other by Jagan ("Jaganite"). Jagan supported a socialist domestic policy, but Burnham's faction was more moderate. The two also had personality differences. After