Will the PPP enter the brave new world?

Apr 05, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,

In the field of Guyanese party politics, there are two issues of supreme importance:

(1) Empowering the entire membership by granting them a direct vote to elect the party’s presidential candidate.

(2) End the existence of ethnic parties, as we know it.

What ails this nation of 700,000 people more than anything else is the sordid practice of ethnic parties and ethnic politics.

For the past 60 years, the two major parties, PPP and PNC have been “selecting” their leaders through something called Tammany Hall or club politics. Club politics allows for back-room deals and by definition is corrupt and anti-democratic. Peoples’ ideas the world over have changed and their guiding principle is empowerment.

Nothing energizes political parties more than by letting the candidates vie for the votes and approval of the general party membership. A good example for inspiration is the party nomination contest (primary elections) that saw Barack Obama elected to lead his party in the general elections. Ten million people went online and sent between $5 and $100 to his campaign to help him get elected in the general elections. This was made possible by the excitement and energy created by the primary. Introducing this system in Guyana will be the equivalent of a rebirth of party politics while making everything transparent.

The system of having a tiny handful of 36 members “select” the PPP’s candidate for the 2011 elections is a travesty – and a gross denial of the franchise to all the members of the party. Indeed President Jagdeo should be challenged to defend this backward system of having a handful of people select his successor.

The announced candidates – Rohee, Nagamootoo, Ramkarran, Ramotar – have been conspiratorially silent on this question of calling for a direct vote by all the party members. Their silence so far speaks loudly about their lack of political courage, their willingness to embrace change and the kind of lacklustre leadership they will offer as president.

The candidacy of Clement Rohee is very interesting, not only for the fact that he is an African-Guyanese. (His candidacy will effectively remove the sign that says: “Only Indians will be considered”). Apart from the fact that he held three Ministerial portfolios and served continuously in the Cabinet for an unbroken 18 years – a record of experience that rivals that of say, Ramotar, who has had no Ministerial or Cabinet experience – if he wins the presidential-candidate slot, he will be able to demonstrate that the PPP is not an Indo-ethnic party. He should also be able to attract and win African support for the party.

As a PPP African-Guyanese president, he will do a heck-of-a-lot to mitigate – and possibly end – the political and racial tensions that dominate the entire pre- and post-colonial history of this country. PPP leaders may be dismissive of this argument – but only to the detriment of the nation – as they will only continue to govern over a tension-filled and racially divided nation.

The perception and reality of the PPP being an Indian party has been a drag and a setback to the politics of this nation. A nation mired in a history of ethnic politics – made so by both major parties being ethnic parties. Both the PPP and PNC have had many opportunities to deal with this ethnic problem since the death of their founder-for-life leaders. And, each time both chose unwisely to follow an unwritten rule that their leaders must and can only be from a particular ethnic group. Incredibly, this occurred in a nation with two dominant ethnic groups – African and Indians – each with substantial proportions (35-50 percent) of the total population. It is manifest that these pre-colonial age parties did not care much for the support of the ethnic group outside their ethnic base. What the PPP and PNC get away with in Guyana is not possible in America.

Now the PPP at this critical juncture of its 60-year long existence can signal its intention to break with its past and embrace a brave new world. Become a genuinely multiracial party by electing an African Guyanese to be its leader. Thus far the party has only been willing to let Africans serve as window-dressers – as Prime Minister – and even then, twice when the opportunity presented itself, the party would not let the African Prime Minister succeed to the Presidency. The party, as if to demonstrate its commitment to being led by an Indian only, literally danced around and subverted the constitutional procedures, just so that an Indian could succeed to the presidency. It had been a low-point – a disgraceful moment – for the party. Today the party faces another opportunity to right these wrongs.

Will a direct vote by all its members produce a candidate of African ethnicity or will this goal be more likely achieved by its “backroom” club politics?

Once the party settles on the desirable goal of nominating an African-Guyanese as its candidate, it can then figure out the best method of achieving that goal. It must be said that the Direct Vote is still something the party must work for. The party’s membership is almost entirely Indian. Have they been educated about the need to reshape the image of the party and eventually to accept an African-Guyanese as its leader? Bharrat Jagdeo for the last 11years has uttered not a word about the need to transform the party into a multi-racial party. All Jagdeo has done over the last 12 years is to surround himself with advisors who are perceived and identified as “Indian triumphalists”.

The founder of the PPP, Cheddi Jagan had always been concerned that his party not be perceived as racial or “Indo-ethnic”. Hence the reason he manipulated one or more party elections so that the chairmanship of the party must be held by an African, Brindley Benn, and not an Indian, Balram Singh Rai. And, again in the 1990-91 when he proposed Roger Luncheon, an African, as the party’s choice to be the presidential candidate of the PCD coalition.

Now wouldn’t the PPP in its collective wisdom – and to fulfill its founder’s wishes – see the need to nominate a qualified African member to head the party?

Guyana is a one-party state for the foreseeable future. PPP is guaranteed to win – given the ingrained habit of both Africans and Indians voting race – and given the numerical majority of Indians in the country and the lock the PPP has on the six percent Amerindian vote. So, does it not make sense to nominate an African guy to head the party – and help change the perception of the party? If the party is perceived to be genuinely multiracial, would it not win greater acceptance from all the races of people that inhabit Guyana?

President Jagdeo is in his last year as leader of the PPP – and uppermost in his mind must be the legacy of his 12-year reign. His party is guaranteed to win in 2011. Thanks to the Afro-ethnic PNC’s rule of 28-years: a rule characterized by dictatorship, stolen elections and a “racial tyranny” (Naipaul’s term). The legacy of the PNC’s misrule is the institutionalized bitterness in the collective consciousness of Indians. Indians will not split their vote – perhaps not for another generation. And, the PNC as if to reinforce and buttress the resentment held by Indians continues to present itself as an Afro-ethnic party.

Jagdeo’s party has political insurance of not losing in 2011 – and out of this impregnable position, he can carve out the best legacy any leader can leave his troubled nation. And that is to do something to ease the racial tensions of his most racially divided nation.

In a single stroke he can use his influence to educate his party rank and file to elect and accept an African Guyanese as its new leader – and future president of Guyana. It would be seen as a stroke of genius – a test of courageous and visionary leadership: a move that would at once usher in the end of an era of ethnic politics; that would fulfill the founder’s true intentions and wishes; that would transform the PPP into a genuine multi-racial party; a move that would finally create in Guyana a genuine multi-racial democracy.

Mike Persaud

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