The Freddie Kissoon column - The congress, the party, the president

The Freddie Kissoon column – The congress, the party, the president

Jul 14, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the most onerous impositions facing the PPP’s forthcoming congress is to delineate, in a strongly theoretical way, the nexus between the party that wins the elections and its policy relations with the president.

There should not be any grey area in the relationship. The President of Guyana derives his power from the party that chooses him to contest the presidential slot in the general poll.

The party has a manifesto, which is an enumeration of its plans for the country. The person who heads the organization into the election must accept that policy document, or his colleagues would not have chosen him/her to head the list. Except in military dictatorships, all other countries are administered by a party system. The United States has a unique structure, but, in the end, the American President has to follow the broad outline of what his/her party wants.

The US President can diverge from the goals his organisation has set, but he will be told that if he does that, then chances of his group winning at both the state and federal levels will be substantially decreased.

In the final analysis, then, party politics rule the political world. The British and Israeli party systems are very strong. The Conservative Party of the UK removed a sitting Prime Minister, Mrs. Margaret Thatcher. In essence, Tony Blair was removed while serving as Prime Minister. Blair was given a diplomatic nudge to go. He ignored several such subtle warnings.

In the end, the pressure from the Labour Party was so great that Blair was allowed to bow out gracefully. But the truth is that he was forced out. Had he stayed, there would have been a mutiny inside the Labour Party.

In Guyana, a unique situation has occurred. The PPP’s presidential representative in Government is nearing his sunset. What permeates the corridors of discussions throughout Guyana is the extent to which Mr. Jagdeo has digressed from the broad outlines of the PPP’s policy blueprints for Guyana.

What this writer has been told is that a large number of decisions Mr. Jagdeo has taken were not the kind of actions the control room of Freedom House agreed to.

I can cite three of them: the running of UG, withdrawal of state advertisements from the Stabroek News, and the denial of a hearing to Joseph O’Lall in his instant dismissal from the Energy Authority.

Any final-term president in the US, France and Guyana can ditch party dreams and party goals and go out on their own agenda. They have nothing to lose – they are leaving office anyway. As I wrote above, the lame duck US President would not do that, because his opposing group will win both at the state and federal levels.

In France, party loyalty will prevent a final-term president (only if he is retiring, since French Presidents can run for more than two terms) from dumping his party manifesto.

In Guyana, the situation should be the same. Because Guyana has a two-term limit on specific presidential individuals, then a final year leader can ditch his party’s manifesto.

This should not happen, because, in doing so he/she will undermine his/her party chances at the next general elections.

From all the accounts I have received from my colleagues in the media, and in the business and academic communities, it looks like there is a widening chasm between the PPP and its presidential office-holder.

What is interesting to the analyst is the total resignation of PPP leaders to the breakaway syndrome. Legally and constitutionally, this cannot happen in the UK, Israel and the rest of Caricom. The party can remove its sitting Prime Minister.

I have already explained in a previous essay why the PPP is not inclined to read the riot act to Mr. Jagdeo. One is that the PPP is afraid its disciplining of Mr. Jagdeo may bring about unintended consequences which could cause the PPP to lose power.

Given the almost insane insecurity complex the PPP was born with, and which has completely taken over its collective psyche, Mr. Jagdeo will not be lectured to. The other is the acceptance of the PPP big-wigs that Mr. Jagdeo’s end of tenure is around the corner, so why cause an upheaval?

The daunting question still faces the party at its congress – how can the party prevent a final-year president from literally rejecting the party’s manifesto and just doing his/her own thing, to the detriment of the party?

For the sake of posterity and political stability, the upcoming PPP congress should come up with a solution whereby it can prevent a president that comes from among its ranks from dumping the essential policies that party would like to see the Government of Guyana embrace.