Who will be held accountable?

Aug 01, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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A political party is bigger than any individual. The interest of the Peoples Progressive Party (PPP) is supposed to supersede that of any individual.
Thus, the party must never be seen as jeopardizing its future by failing to take action against any of its members, be it senior of junior, whose actions have brought the party into disrepute or seriously affected its support.
As with any organization, the party may show empathy towards a member who has seriously erred or contributed to diminished support of the party. But it should never sacrifice the greater good of the organization just to protect any of its members. Even those judged to be the greatest and finest amongst its tanks must one day face scrutiny and judgment.
The time for such scrutiny and judgment is nigh. The Congress of the ruling Peoples Progressive Party will be held this weekend and foremost amongst the issues that is likely to top the agenda will be the performance of the party in the 2011 elections, when for the first time since free and fair elections were restored, the PPPC party failed to gain a parliamentary majority. The Congress must dispassionately examine the causes of this failure and let the chips fall where they must fall.
Whatever the outcome of this analysis, the delegates will be required to hold persons accountable for the performance of the party and to take action.
This is how parties have historically demonstrated that the interest of the organisation remains superior to that of any individual. There are always political casualties arising out of the process of self- examination. In this way, a party corrects itself and erases its imperfections.
It makes no sense for analysis to take place but for no one to be held accountable. That would reduce the task of analysis to a mere cosmetic exercise. The highest decision-making forum of any party must never be about political cosmetology.
It will be the task of the delegates to question how it was that for six years the economy was growing impressively and yet the party failed to gain the majority that it had consistently attained election after election. How is it that despite distributing so many house lots and establishing so many housing schemes, the party barely scraped fifty per cent of the total votes cast? Why did the housing programme fail to bring votes to the party?
If the economy and its policies were not the problem, what was the cause of the disenchantment? Was it the ostentatious lifestyles that were sported by some individuals within the leadership, the massive mansions which were erected and which helped to galvanize opposition towards the government?
Or was it a failure of the economic model to deliver development to rural communities where the bulk of the PPP support base resides that accounted for the setbacks the party suffered? Or were mistakes made in terms of the campaign strategy and execution?
If it is agreed that it was the ostentatious lifestyles of certain leaders that were responsible for galvanizing the opposition and disenchanting the support base of the party, then those who are guilty of extravagance must be held accountable and be removed from the leadership. There can be no other remedy.
If on the other hand, the economic model that was pursued was flawed, in that it benefitted a few more than it did the many, or that it failed to address rural poverty and deprivation, then the architect of this model must be held accountable and asked to step aside.
What about the election campaign? Was it efficiently executed? And who should be held responsible for any mistakes in strategy or failures to check the voters list, to do the groundwork or to ensure there was adequate monitoring at polling stations where it is alleged irregularities took place.
Why also were the membership and supporters not told that nineteen polling stations were excluded from the total tally of votes cast in a Region which the PPP won comfortably? Would the inclusion of those votes have given the PPP a one seat majority, instead of a one seat minority?
If the delegates are convinced about the causes of the party’s ongoing loss of support, it must ask why have so many of its supporters turned their backs on the party. Having determined the causes of the loss of support, the Congress must hold those responsible accountable for the present predicament that the party finds itself in.
The Congress would be failing in its duty if it refuses to sanction those leaders who brought the party to the present state of humiliation where it now has to beg the opposition to pass Bills in the National Assembly.  Those responsible must be held accountable for this state of affairs. The delegates must remove those responsible from the leadership.
If the party fails to do this, it will be guilty of rubber-stamping the existing leadership and this can mean only one thing: that the party no longer belongs to the members but has been hijacked by the Princes who look down on the masses from their balconies.
TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

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