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Slouching towards democracy?

Dec 29, 2010 Editorial

If Rome, as has been claimed, was not built in a day, most Guyanese would concede that democracy in our dear land might take a tad longer. The former after all, was a physical entity that could be monitored and evaluated by all and sundry as to whether progress was being made. Democracy being more of an idea; an ideal as a matter of fact, about how best we may arrange our governance structures so that we may better fulfil our human potential is somewhat more protean. There is more room for debate as to where exactly on the democratic road we are at this moment.
Abraham Lincoln’s definition of democracy as being “rule of the people; by the people and for the people” is hard to beat. It captures the essence of the democratic imperative: the singular ascendancy of the people over the pretentions of the few, the oligarchs. Today in Guyana, it would be foolhardy to assert, as some have done, that because we have “free and fair elections” in our country, ipso facto “democracy” has been achieved. Have we really reached that point where “the people” are really calling the shots about how things are run in this country?
Part of our problem is that in our long, chequered history, we have had so little experience with the actual practice of democracy. Up to our independence – only some forty-four years ago – our colonial rulers had decided we were not quite ready for that evidently heady and taxing endeavour. Quite a lot of tutelage was necessary. Our early leaders apparently did not really disagree with the premise of the departed colonials: one of them decided that he had to “mould” our destiny, while the other – out of power – decided to institute the tenets of “democratic centralism” in the decision-making process of his party.
An innovation of the Lenin and the Russian communists, the oxymoronic concept turned the practice of democracy on its head and brought us right back to the premises of the imperialists. The “people” – or members of the party in our case – would be canvassed for their views in stage-managed conventions, but it was up to the leaders to decide on the actual course of action. And the “people” could not dissent from this line: they were expected to toe it slavishly. So with the “return of free and fair elections” in 1992, we had the anomaly of a people-driven choice of national leaders who have been themselves selected to stand for office by a fundamentally anti-democratic practice. The contradictions, in the words of Lenin himself, had to eventually become manifest.
And they now have. While the founder leaders of the two major parties and their immediate successors were around, the contradictions were masked through the force of tradition, habit and inertia. In the PNC we are now witnessing an open canvassing for the position of “Presidential Candidate” even as the leader clings onto his position in a reflexive paroxysm of the old order. But it is over in the PPP that the most welcome sign encroaching democracy has sprouted. For a party in power, after all, it is not usual for members to rock the boat: the spoils of office that are spread far and wide usually stifle reformist aspirations.
Last week, long time member of the PPP – and in fact the son of a founding member of the party – the Speaker of the Parliament, Mr Ralph Ramkarran, publicly took issue with the General Secretary of his party over the method that will be used to select the presidential candidate of the PPP. Mr Ramkarran would have the vote by the party leaders a secret one – and has invoked natural justice to buttress what he claims to be PPP’s precedents for his case. The General Secretary, Mr Donald Ramotar has been somewhat equivocal on the issue. The fact that both individuals have publicly declared their willingness to accept their party’s nomination is not coincidental.
But Guyanese democracy on the whole can only be strengthened by the expansion of internal political party democracy. Democracy, like charity, must begin at home.

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