Not for the first time, a week ago a senior Alliance for Change (AFC) member left the party, claiming that ‘over the years I have been at loggerheads with the executive. There is a power struggle at the top. The top bracket only looks out for themselves’ (SN: 29/08/2020). Two weeks ago, the leader of the APNU+AFC coalition presented his party’s list of prospective parliamentarians that resulted from the March 2020 general elections and all hell broke loose. Top party members complained that the list was constructed without proper consultations and supporters of the chairperson of the People’s National Congress Reform (PNCR), the major component of the coalition, were surprised that she was not on the list! Just before the elections, the new president, Dr. Irfaan Ali, was widely viewed by senior PPP members as an unpopular imposition on the party that was likely to keep it out of government. These recent but persistent complaints of undemocratic behaviour within the existing political parties suggest that I turn the reform telescope upon them.
Political parties are central to the modern representative democratic process: they integrate and articulate the views and interests of their members and compete for government with the intention of implementing their programmes. In a democratic society it is expected that parties will make their decisions, elect their officials and devise their policies and programmes in an accountable, open and transparent manner. However, by their very nature these organisation are oligarchies in which power resides in the hands of a relatively small number of top officials and specific policies are required to make and keep them democratic.
The German sociologist Roberto Michels in his book, ‘Political Parties’ developed what he termed the ‘iron law oligarchy.’ ‘It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization says oligarchy.’ Of necessity organisations have leaders who because of their position, e.g., they control the personnel, finance, records, agenda, usually have enormous organisational authority. Ordinary members and supporters, busy making a living, tend to leave the management of the organisation to these officials who tend to become self-perpetuating, employing and encouraging other members of their ilk. Pervasive though this behaviour becomes over decades, approaches have been developed to encourage internal democratic processes to mitigate the negative impact of oligarchies.
That said, speaking of Guyana there are two important structural difficulties of which one must be aware. Generally, changes in oligarchic behaviour must result from the oligarchs themselves, perhaps under membership and public pressure. In other words, one is more or less asking those who are in a position to benefit from the oligarchic nature of the organisation to implement changes that are likely to remove their privileges; to put in place the arrangements to train and facilitate the membership becoming proactive democratic partners that are able to remove them from their office. This is partly responsible for the persistent complaint in Guyana that party leaders keep making promises but no substantial changes occur (SN: 02/12/2018). Organisations have been known to democratise themselves but it is a structural problem that is difficult to overcome (http://web.mit.edu/osterman/www/Overcoming-Oligarchy.pdf).
Secondly, no solution that requires public condemnation and pressure should be contemplated in Guyana without taking into account the ethnic nature of the society. The two major political parties in Guyana are the bulwark against the other ethnic side and thus their supporters are intolerant of their being criticised by any others than themselves and they are also indulgent of their parties’ inefficiencies and excessiveness. The result is that such parties are easily captured by maximum leaders and are usually located at the dictatorial end of the oligarchy continuum.
In a democratic party members are involved in decision-making at all levels of the organisations and to do so sensibly they must be schooled in what constitutes the party’s platforms, its values, rules and processes. In such an environment complaints such as those in the first paragraph will be minimal. However, among other things, in such an environment members will have regular opportunities to take part in the democratic selection of party leaders at all levels (one of the more successful ways of ensuring that such challenges are meaningful is to encourage organised intraparty competition for policy and offices); term limits will ensure there is regular turnover of leadership; efforts will be made to see that the party membership and leadership are reflective of ethnic and gender balance; there will be stringent financial reporting – on contributions, expenses, assets, funding sources, etc. – to the membership and the public; disciplinary committees, independent of the party bureaucracy, will conduct investigations and sanction party members who do not follow party rules, regulations and values, and independent investigative committees will be established by which party members and the public can be informed why manifesto and other important party commitments are not being implemented. (For more comprehensive discussion on the organisation and sanctions of political parties see, https://www.ndi.org/sites/default /files/Best_Practices_of_Effective_Parties_ English.pdf & https://www.kas.dec/document_library/get_file?uuid=118fc289-9d59-5771-3f0b-d54ce4e183 cf&groupId=252038.
Constitutions do not usually say a great deal about political parties: relevant here is Article 10 of Guyana’s Constitution by which the right to form political parties and their freedom of action are guaranteed and ‘political parties must respect the principles of national sovereignty and of democracy’. Perhaps it could contain a few other important issues: by the German constitution holding party positions is limited to a two-year term but a person is re-electable according to the Political Parties Act that determines the internal workings of parties. Important decisions must be taken by members of the party or its delegates and elections must be secret. (https://www.kas.de/c/document_library/get_file?uuid=735c449b-fd52-c43f-6f58-403a818d3be9&groupId=252038).
One is tempted to say that without an enhanced level of national unity the ethnic dimension mention above will make it impossible to seriously mitigate the existing level of oligarchic control in Guyana. While some out-dated minimal laws, such as the Representation of the People Act of 1964, speak to campaign financing and parties are obliged to register with the Guyana Elections Commission if they intend to participate in national and regional elections, they do not have to register as social organisations. Therefore, a comprehensive modern law that includes some of the issues stated above and those having to do with the parties’ legal rights, privileges, funding, reporting obligations, registration, dissolution, equal access to state media, sanctions for violating constitutional principles, misappropriation of funds, etc. can only be helpful and are urgently required.
