A leaderless party?

Jul 29, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The PPP has been without an official leader for close to forty years. During the great part of that period, however, from 1970-1997, there was never any question as to who was the leader of the PPP.

While Dr. Cheddi Jagan was always officially referred to as the party’s General Secretary, he was without any doubt the party’s supreme leader, the visionary and intellectual maestro of the PPP.

Both in opposition from 1964 to 1992, and in government from 1992 until his death in 1997, there was never any questioning his supreme authority within the PPP.

Since his death, the party has failed to amend its constitution to officially designate a leader. While this omission has not affected the party up to now, it will in the near future, even if the PPP retains power in the 2011 elections. I will explain how.

Up to now, the question of the leadership of the PPP has never had a bearing on the presidency. In 1999, Bharrat Jagdeo became President of Guyana.

This happened after Mrs. Jagan resigned from the presidency because of ill-health. He completed her term, which ended in 2001.

Therefore, as the party approached the elections of that year, Bharrat Jagdeo was the logical choice as the PPP’s presidential candidate.

In the run-up to the 2006 elections, the PPP again did not have to worry about who should be its presidential candidate. There was no need for anyone to throw his or her hat in the ring.

For the 2006 elections there was no problem. The incumbent president was again the logical choice as the PPP’s presidential candidate.

For 2011, there will, however, be a problem. The incumbent is precluded by our constitution from seeking a third term.

The PPP therefore has to find someone as its presidential candidate. That person, however, will not have presidential experience.

That person, from the names being bandied about, may not even be a serving minister of the Government. Who knows that person may not even be a member of either the Central Executive or the Executive Committee.

How can such a person cement his position and demand the respect, authority and full support of the party’s machinery if that person is not seen as the leader of the PPP?

The People’s Progressive Party has to accept that it lives in the real and modern world. It has to adapt to changing times.

It has to ensure that it is in touch with the world, and that in this world citizens look for a leader of a party.
They indentify the party with its leader, and not the other way around. In the United States, a President is elected to office, not his party.

In Britain, which has a Parliamentary system similar to ours, even though there are political parties, it is the Prime Minister and the Opposition Leader who share the public limelight.

The politics of Guyana is also the politics of leaders. People may pledge their loyalty to political parties, and may vote for whoever is chosen as leader of these parties, but the fact remains that the people look towards a leader for leadership.

If the PPP therefore hopes to examine its party structure, it cannot afford to do so without recognizing that this present model that it works with is outdated and irrelevant.

That model was patterned after the old communist parties in Russia, where the General Secretary is all-powerful and is in fact the de facto leader. In the present PPP, the General Secretary is not the de facto leader. The PPP has no leader.

The Working People’s Alliance was the first to recognise the fact that the Guyanese electorate wishes to identify with a party leader, and not just with a collection of faces.

They thus switched to a leader for their party. They dumped the concept of a collective leadership in the run-up to the 1997 elections.

They even dumped the concept of rotating Parliamentarians. I am not sure who that leader is at the moment, since the WPA has been in terminal decline for some time now.

The PPP cannot afford to appoint a presidential candidate who is not considered or seen as its leader. This will hurt the party in any elections.

And considering how things are going right now in the country, if the PPP hopes to win the next election, it has to move away from driftwood politics and opt for a more structured arrangement — one in which a leader of the party is clearly indentified. The PPP needs a leader.