Dear Editor,
Reading the Independent press (SN, KN) over the last few weeks, I get the impression the Primary Election season has begun.
A US-style primary election is a free and open vote involving all the registered members of a party voting to choose its presidential candidate for the next election. Can there be such an election in Guyana to decide who shall be the PPP’s candidate for the next presidential election scheduled for 2011? Should the members of the PPP and the Guyanese people in general fight for such a system?
Deeply held institutional practices never fade away just by asking for it. In this case it’s a 60-year-old practice in which a bare handful of members – all told 36 so-called “central committee members” – select the party’s candidate. It is not hard to imagine the awesome power of these 36 divinely-vested individuals in any two-party democracy; their power is even more awesome when you consider that Guyana is a de facto one-party state. These 36 individuals literally elect the next president of the Republic of Guyana. (How Guyana became a de facto one-party state is the subject for another letter).
And, this is all the more reason – perhaps the most important reason – why there should be intra-party democracy (one-man-one-vote for every bona fide member of the party) to elect the party’s presidential candidate. This system is guaranteed to produce the most qualified and popular candidate. (Just think and reflect how the primary system worked so beautifully in the United States to produce presidential candidate Barack Obama. A system of the broadest possible dispersion of power).
Obtaining intra-party democracy is something that will have to be fought for through vigorous agitation – nationwide marches and demonstrations and daily debates in the press and on radio. The independent press will have to lend a helping hand – just as the Stabroek News let itself be used as a broadsheet for the free-and-fair elections struggle in the 5-year period prior to 1992. Also Guyanese activists will have to lobby certain centres of power – the State departments of the US, Canada and Britain, which have great leverage over the ruling PPP government. And now a new centre of power, Norway has committed to pay the Guyanese government US$250 million over the next five years. Also the Carter Center which did a yeoman’s job 20 years ago, of cajoling and pressuring the Burnham-Hoyte dictatorship to agree to hold a free and fair election, should be asked again to help in the fight to institute intra-party democracy in Guyana.
The system of having 36-privileged members elect a presidential candidate in the second decade of the 21st century has to be considered a political anachronism. It is definitely an archaic practice that belongs to a bygone era.
Are there enough Guyanese who are ready to take up this fight? I recall a Guyanese people’s meeting I attended on February 10, 1990 on Liberty Avenue in Queens, New York. Never has there been a similar meeting since with so much energy, enthusiasm and confidence – over 500 people rallying over a simply-defined cause: Free and Fair Elections Now. Driving back from Washington DC one night after a meeting with State department officials, Arjune Baichu announced defiantly: “I will fast for seven days outside the United Nations building”. Within a few days a very successful Fast and Vigil was held outside the UN building to call attention to the almost three decades of bogus elections in Guyana.
Several Congress-men sent letters of support. The BBC came on site to interview the leaders of the fast and our cause was broadcast around the world. Guyanese can again summon the same energy and zeal to introduce genuine intra-party democracy in Guyana.
Several months ago, General Secretary of the PPP, Donald Ramotar announced that a mechanism would be instituted to elect the presidential candidate for the 2011 elections. Everyone assumed that mechanism would be giving the vote to all party members. To date, Ramotar has not announced anything even remotely suggesting that the idea of intra-party democracy is in the air. His only public announcement is that he, himself, wants to be the candidate. In the last few days, Moses Nagamootoo, Ralph Ramkarran and Clement Rohee also announced that they too are interested in running for the position.
But how does one run when there is no “mechanism” – no system where the candidates can present their qualifications and the party members can freely and openly vote for their next leader?
It is time for the Guyanese people – and specifically the party members themselves – to declare the old boys’ club system of yore as undemocratic and dead. With the gusto of an Arjune Baichu, I declare I shall return to Guyana in July and I will march from Crabwood Creek to Georgetown, and from Pomeroon to Georgetown to build pressure on the PPP’s top brass to adopt a U.S.-style primary to elect the next leader of the party. And, my work will not be finished there. I shall write all the centres of power, and especially the government of Norway to hold off on all payments of funds to the ruling PPP government until they agree to elect their next leader through an open and free vote.
The upper echelon of the PPP should see no evil intent or hostility in my call for genuine intra-party democracy. In fact giving the right-to-vote directly for their new leader to every party member can only result in generating new sources of energy while at the same time producing the most eligible and qualified candidate to lead the party into the next elections.
Guyanese who would like to support my effort – and help organize a march across the coastlands of Guyana, please contact me at mpersaud101@gmail.com
Yours faithfully,
Mike Persaud
