Presidential selection process needs to be more open

Mar 16, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Though Dr. Cheddi ‘Joey’ Jagan and I locked horns recently over aspects of his political commentary on the Alliance For Change (AFC), I have to say I unhesitatingly concur with the general observations of his letter, “The PPP presidential candidate selection process does not involve the mass of supporters,” (Kaieteur News, March 15).
On the same date, another letter shorter in content, “Let the rank and file members choose presidential candidate,” by D. Kissoondyal, pretty much echoed the basic tenor of Dr. Joey’s much more elaborative letter.
Before I venture my opinion on the merits of what I see as the need for a preliminary or primary process of selecting potential presidential candidates from a party before a final candidate is decided on, let me quickly say that while Dr. Joey’s description of top party members deciding who gets the prize by meeting behind closed doors with their central and executive committees as reflective of a ‘communist orientation’ is true, it is also true that this practice in the PPP became possible because of the manner in which his late father and mother structured the hierarchy of the party to function.
Unless there is a ground up revolution or a changing of the guard by truly revolutionary thinking leaders, then the current PPP leaders, who are merely perpetuating the Jagans’ practice, will pass it on to their handpicked successors.
Now, to the merits of having political parties select their presidential candidates through an open, preliminary process. We are well aware of what obtained in Guyana’s politics for the last 50 years featuring the PPP and PNC with their almost identical system of picking party leaders, but what has stood out was the dominance of the personality factor. In both the PPP and PNC, the founders became the embodiment of their respective parties, and so the parties’ policies and practices that flowed from the founders eventually characterized their parties.
The late Cheddi Jagan was a die-hard communist and so his ideological thinking was reflected in the party’s manifesto, which likely would have been implemented in his government if he had his way. He died without seeing his ideological dreams come to fruition. The late Forbes Burnham, by his choice of going socialist in 1974, was cut from the same swath of communist cloth as Cheddi Jagan, except that he was a political opportunist. And despite possessing a brilliant mind, his arrogance blocked him from seeing that the success of Guyana’s economy was tied to an international market place controlled by the West, so he literally harmed Guyana’s chances at economic success by constantly lambasting the West while pushing for political and economic relations with the East. As it turned out, the Western system outlived or survived the Eastern system.
Both men are now dead, but unlike Burnham, who had already picked a successor long before he died, Cheddi Jagan reportedly picked his successor on his death bed and the effects of that choice are being felt to this day since Cheddi Jagan died without leaving an economic blueprint for the PPP to execute. Burnham’s successor, on the other hand, boldly abandoned the socialist route and began tinkering with a free market economic system. He was voted out of office in 1992, even though his tinkering showed signs of progress and hope. Hoyte’s replacement in the presidency, according to a former top government insider, apparently did not come back into power with a comprehensive economic plan, and had actually considered reneging on Guyana’s obligation to repay its foreign debt, while looking at the possibility of taking Guyana into the socialist bloc of nations.
Today, we are at a point in our survival story where Guyana still does not have a comprehensive, viable economic plan spanning a period of years ahead, and especially now that the risky Low Carbon Development Strategy is on life support. And what is proving hard to accept by Guyanese is that the party in government spent the last 17 years running the government and country on an ad hoc plan that involves mostly foreign loans, foreign grants, foreign remittances and money laundered into the informal economy.
There has been no viable long-term vision for the people or even investors to latch on to so they can rally around with their active involvement. The government even has the gall to sometimes list certain ‘signs’ as progress, but if there is no framework in which performance can be measured or if there is no long-term vision with targets and goals that can be judged as achievable or unachievable, then any ‘sign’ could be construed as progress.
It then begs the question: why are political parties still relying on a presidential selection system that has not worked for Guyana? This idea of the party picking a candidate through some secret process internal to the party, has taken on the image equivalent of putting your hands in a hat and expecting to pull out a rabbit, but you wind up pulling out a reptile that turns and devours everyone and everything in its path. No wonder Guyana truly is a land blessed with rich resources, but cursed with poor political leaders.
I don’t know if it will ever happen in our lifetime, but I would like to see political parties open up their process for selecting potential candidates by having all those interested in running submit their names to their parties based on a certain number of signatures collected through transparent signature collection campaigning. The top two or three ‘signature getters’ should then be required to debate each other on live television at least twice on a stage before a panel comprising three stakeholders from society and under the direction of an impartial moderator.
The two or three should also hold at least two televised town hall meetings where members of the community are invited and allowed to ask questions directly of the candidates on their vision and strategies for Guyana’s recovery and development. The candidate that does better in the debates and town hall meetings should then be selected based on votes cast by rank and file members of the party.
This may just be a first step in the direction of taking the selection process out of the hands of a select few and putting it in the hands of the general membership in a secret ballot. At some later stage, the process can be further opened up to allow GECOM to register ordinary voters along party lines so these voters can join party members in voting for candidates, but on Election Day, the voters registered with one party should be allowed to cross party lines and vote for a candidate from another party. We really have a long way to go in deepening the democratic process.
My views here are by no means final, but can be tweaked to obtain a better system for picking party candidates and, ultimately, the President of Guyana. It should be a lot better than the process that gave us President Bharrat Jagdeo with no viable economic plan or the process that gave the PNC its current leader. Mr. Robert Corbin, who, as main parliamentary opposition leader, failed to keep President Jagdeo in check and thinks the best solution to the political situation in Guyana, is through shared governance.
If the PPP and PNC don’t change the way they select their leaders and voters continue voting largely for PPP and PNC, the country will be stuck with presidents foisted in the nation by a handful of people whose primary interest in the entire process is to bide their time until their turn comes to be a presidential candidate. The parties will always be the winners and the people will always be the losers, and I know of no sane people who vote themselves as losers.
Emile Mervin

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