‘Norton, Campbell and democracy’

Oct 13, 2025 Letters

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Dear Editor,

Salute to Ms. Maria Corina Machado on being awarded the 2025 Noble Peace Prize for her part in the struggle for democracy in Venezuela.

Democracy is not merely a way of managing social affairs: much more importantly, it is the expression of human freedom in the social setting. To eliminate or use various means to suppress it, particularly in an ethnic setting where group identity is important, is to institutionalise political alienation and ultimately give rise to substantial social conflicts.

During his presentation at the opening of the ‘Bharrat Jagdeo Demerara Harbour Bridge’, President Dr. Irfaan Ali waxed lyrical about the return to democracy on 5 October 1992. Interestingly, as he did with many other naming offers, when the old bridge was being launched, Forbes Burnham simply laughed at the suggestion that since it was then considered the world’s ‘longest floating bridge’ it should have been called the Linden Forbes Burnham Bridge!

Even if we forget the deliberate contextual limitation of the president’s presentation, I have argued before that Guyana was demoted to being a dictatorial state under Dr. Ali’s watch by the 2025 report of the V-Democracy project, which is easily the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative source dealing with nature of democratic governance (VV: 05/10/2025). Nothing has happened since that presentation to change my position.

Apart from saying that elections day 2025 was peaceful and efficiently administered, I cannot recall that any of the major observer groups, referred to the process as democratic. Indeed, their critique of the pre-elections process substantiates the position taken by V-Democracy, for it is well established that elections are better rigged long before elections day and in themselves do not establish a liberal democratic order. Governments produced by elections may be inefficient, corrupt, shortsighted, irresponsible, dominated by special interests, and incapable of adopting policies demanded by the public good.  During its time in government, the PPP has exhibited and continues to display all these negative qualities.

Briefly, my assessment of the outcome of the 2025 elections in the article above remains intact.  The PPP has failed in its decades-long bid to deliberately impoverish Africans to force enough of them into its ranks to diminish the African case for constitutional reforms to protect their interest. Even deploying the entire repertoire of pre-elections undemocratic behaviour could not accomplish this goal. Note that the actual voting population is only about 515,000 persons and the PPP is at present in government because of its usual strong ethnic support and the normal, comparatively large, coerced and manipulated Amerindian population that normally votes for it (VV: 13/07/2025).

Election behaviour must replicate itself for about three elections cycles before one can do much more than speculate negatively or positively about it.  What is without doubt is that We Invest in Nationhood’s (WIN) performance was substantially aided by the fragmentation of the PNC and this is unlikely to last particularly since the escalation of its difficulties has now made the other parties weary of dealing with it!

Worldwide, in various ways autocrats have sought to capture and bend the State to their wills. In this regard, political parties, like all social organisations, are prone to the ‘iron law’ of oligarchy i.e. capture by the small leadership cliques that control their day-to-day activities leaving little space for the ordinary member to meaningfully impact policy making and organisational accountability. Communist arrangements such as ‘democratic centralism’ that severely curtail free, open, democratic participation only make the situation worse.

But then there is a widespread sterile utilitarian view that democracy is merely a means of managing the State. And like the iron law of oligarchy, this situates well with those who believe that political parties exist to win and wield political power on behalf of their membership.  The notion that human freedom can only be properly expressed in the social setting by free democratic participation is trivialised in theory and practice and constitutes an essential dividing line between the autocratic and democratic mindset.

While the latter prioritises the construction of political parties with internal democratic arrangements that give the ordinary members maximum opportunity to participate, develop, and enforce policies, the former has contributed significantly to the disintegration of PNC/APNU.   Mr. Aubrey Norton has been the victim of the wrongheaded position that outcomes of the democratic process can and should be conveniently disposed of. He and Dr. Terrence Campbell, the present leader of the party in parliament, will have to confront and deal with this democratic deficit in the PNC if it is to remain and grow as a democratic institution.

Many liberal democracies have established arrangements such as primaries to avoid the negative tendencies of oligarchies and enhance internal democratic participation. In 2011, after multiple electoral defeats, internal convulsions and external criticisms, the PNC gave hope by establishing a primary-type system to choose its presidential candidate, and the present internal spasm is a sign that the democratic impulse has not been extinguished.

At the general level, Guyana is a dictatorship that lacks an adequate separation of powers and other democratic arrangements. In the interest of human freedom and development, Mr. Norton and Dr. Campbell should prioritise democratising general and in-party political relations, for one will not substantially materialise without the other. Its recent utterings relating to development of Georgetown and establishment of a permanent reliable cash grant, suggest that the PPP will continue to be obstructive to progressive democratic improvements, but if sensibly massaged, the present parliamentary configuration portends greater political activism.

Sincerely,

Dr. Henry Jeffrey

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• 2025 Noble Peace Prize, Campbell, Democracy, Letters, Maria Corina Machado, Norton, Venezuela

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