POLITICAL PLURALISM AND THE COLLECTIVE WILL OF THE MAJORITY

Aug 05, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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There was a scheduled follow-up meeting between the government and leaders representing Region 10, APNU and the AFC. This meeting was to continue the process of finding solutions to the crisis in Linden.
Even before this meeting, the Private Sector Commission (PSC) had met separately with the government. It had also met separately with APNU about the situation.
The PSC is a major stakeholder in Guyana. It may not throw its weight around, but it is a heavyweight when it comes to wielding influence in this society and given that some of its members were affected by the situation in Linden, and given their concerns about the situation deteriorating, it was only natural that they should wish to try to be part of the solution.
When the representatives from APNU and the Region turned up at the meeting, they reportedly objected to the presence of the PSC. One of the grounds advanced for the objection was that the presence of a new entrant into the talks would have broken the tone which had been set in previous engagements. The leaders were therefore not in favour of the PSC being present.
This is a fairly understandable position. The presence of a new party to the talks could have diverted the discussions and changed its tone. So the explanation was clearly justifiable and legitimate.
Another explanation – and this may have been the one that the PSC may have heard -was that the leaders wanted not just the private sector but also the labour movement present. In fact it was later said that the leaders were willing to meet with a broad cross-section of stakeholders in a separate engagement.
The PSC felt slighted. Its ego was bruised and it issued a statement which confirmed that it felt miffed by what took place.
The statement ended with the following sentence. “We should not confine our discourse on national issues to the political will of a few.”
This statement has led to a reaction from some journalists, and in turn from some leaders of the political opposition, suggesting that the combined opposition was not a few, but in fact represented the majority.
That, of course, was not the inference that the PSC’s statement intended. However, in Guyana it is not unusual that statements can be spun away from their original meaning.
It is clear what the PSC intended. It was saying that national discourse cannot be about a few persons or groups. That it used the words political will was meant to infer the political intentions of a few individuals prevailing in discourses.
It could well be that these few individuals may feel that they represent the majority. If they do, then they are surely not operating within the context of political pluralism, but are misleading themselves into believing that because the majority of the electorate elected them to parliament, they speak on behalf of all those who voted for them on every issue.
This is outmoded thinking. The system of representative democracy today, simply means that those elected to parliament do so on the basis of the support they receive from the electorate. But the electorate is too diverse a grouping of interests to have these elected representatives speak to these varied interests.
Within this electorate, there are various classes, there are various groupings to which the people belong, there are various professions with their own interests, etc. There are a wide variety of interests and therefore there is a need for these various interests to have a say and for their views to be represented through a system of political pluralism.
In such a system the various groups to which the electorate belong – be it women’s groups, youth, business, professions, etc – can be used to promote the interests of their members.
In fact, the whole political process is now one in which political parties are actively seeking out various interest groups so as to win the endorsement of these groups.
These groups in turn expect to be treated as important stakeholders and to be consulted and involved in the political process.
APNU and the AFC, the combined opposition, must not therefore confuse themselves into believing that because they won, collectively, barely over fifty per cent of the votes, they speak for the majority in the country. They certainly are not speaking for consumers throughout Guyana when they promote the idea that Linden must not pay a cent more in electricity tariffs.
What is ironic about this posture of the combined opposition speaking for the majority is that the constitution itself does not demand a majority in order to win the seat of government. The constitution, in fact, accords to the party that wins the most votes in the election that right, because Burnham had the foresight to know that one day it may be possible for the PNCR to sneak in to power without gaining a majority of the votes.
What is even more ironic is that APNU itself is a creature of political pluralism. APNU was conceived as an open partnership, not just of political parties, but also potentially of civil society groupings and individuals. So APNU is built upon a model that emphasizes the involvement of all the varied interests and groups to which the people of Guyana belong.
The leaders who objected to the presence of the PSC at the meeting had reasonable and justifiable grounds to do so. But when it comes to their understanding of just who they are representing, they are off the beaten track. Societies are much too complex and stratified to have two political parties having a monopoly on the majority will of the people on every issue.

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