The PPP and leadership

Aug 04, 2008 Editorial

The PPP’s congress has ended, and, as declared by its General Secretary even before it began, its 2001 presidential candidate was not chosen.

One may choose to look at the respective votes the members of the Central Executive received in their elections and speculate as to whether that affirmation of “popularity” would translate into a “mandate” from the party’s delegates. But that is all it would be – mere speculation.

The question of presidential candidate in the PPP has only become a point of debate and discussion in the last decade, following the death of Dr. Cheddi Jagan in 1997.

In the almost fifty years after Dr Jagan founded the party, he was challenged only once – and that was back in 1955 by Mr LFS Burnham. The challenge ended in the split of the PPP and of a unified independence movement.

All of Guyanese political history since then has been nothing but footnotes to that split. While, externally, the passing of Dr Jagan did not have any deleterious effect on the PPP’s hold on political power since it secured ever increasing majorities in the next three elections, it did create tensions within the second tier leadership core that had been groomed by Dr. Jagan.

After Dr. Jagan’s widow, Mrs Janet Jagan, claimed to have been personally selected to succeed Dr Jagan, the party went along and did not seem to appreciate the irony of an individual being chosen as leader of a supposedly democratic institution by only one other individual. Riots in the streets by opposition elements, and illness (and the two may not necessarily be unrelated) forced Mrs. Jagan to step aside.

In the deliberations of the party’s Executive Committee, two individuals, Mr Moses Nagamootoo and Mr Ralph Ramkarran, were stalemated for the candidacy of the presidency, and a compromise candidate, Mr Bharrat Jagdeo, was selected. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the face of the constitutional clause restricting the occupancy of the Office of the President to a maximum of two terms by any one individual, there has been intense speculation in the public and the press as to who might become the party’s next nominee. In his report, the Party’s General Secretary, himself touted as one of the candidates, declared unequivocally: “…the decision will not be made in the press.

The party will discuss this issue, and it is the party that will choose the time, the place and the method of deciding this matter.” While, on the face of things, this position may appear reasonable, in the context of the critical juncture of our country’s political history, we believe that the PPP would be better advised to select their presidential candidate for the 2011 election in a more open, transparent, and yes, democratic, manner. We need leaders with the greatest possible legitimacy.

We say this because, if the history of the party is anything to go by, the candidate will be selected by the Executive Committee. Even President Jagdeo conceded that it is highly unlikely that another congress would be convened before he demits office.

In light of the party’s claim to be in the forefront of entrenching “democracy in Guyana”, it has to practice what it preaches.

The tradition of the Executive Committee making such decisions arose out of the practice of “democratic centralism” – a Leninist innovation that has no place in a community hoping to deepen the institutions of liberal democracy. In such a democracy, sovereignty lies ultimately and inalienably in the people, and the goal is to get as many of them as possible involved in the making of decisions that affect them.

While it may be too much of a stretch to ask that the PPP begin to conduct countrywide primaries, a la the US example, we do think that a new congress of PPP delegates can be convened in a year’s time to select the individual who may lead them into the 2011 elections. In the meantime, permission can be granted, and arrangements facilitated, for presidential hopefuls within the party – in or out of the Executive Committee – to lobby delegates for their candidacy.

This would increase the democratic credentials of the eventual candidate and preclude the backroom deals that can weaken democracy in our country – and the party.

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The PPP and leadership

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