‘It is organization which gives birth to the domination of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization says oligarchy’ (Roberto Michels (1911) ‘Political Parties’). Michels’ theory is not only interesting in itself but because in Guyana it is accompanied by another such structural formation – bi-communalism – which is even less understood but must also be conquered if the surfeit of wealth Guyana now possesses is to be inclusively managed for all Guyanese (Scott Orr (2007) ‘The Theory and Practice of Ethnic Politics: How What We Know about Ethnic Identity Can Make Democratic Theory Better’).
Oligarchies develop naturally from the desire for organizational effectiveness, are usually a natural outcome of social organisational formation and they pervade all our political parties, trade unions, cooperative societies and similar organisations. Evidence of this is in the simple fact that unless counter measures are in place, there is rarely any radical change of leadership in these organisations, and when there is, it is usually by way of co-option i.e. the leadership itself promoting one of their birinci. Think, for example, of the recent leadership moves in the Alliance for Change.
In a nutshell, because of their very location, organisational leaders have tremendous authority as members and supporters tend to leave almost everything – day-to-day operations – to them. Members rarely attend meetings and some of the most vociferous supporters do not even bother to join and indeed make a virtue of not actually joining. Added to this, if the organisation/party becomes large and successful it will have an income and funds, it will appoint full-time and part-time officials and establish newspapers, training schools, regional and overseas offices.
The leaders also control the agenda, the minutes and membership records (members’ names, contact information, positions, activities, etc.). Even before a political party wins government, the party leaders who already have the above-mentioned patronage acquire even more positions of power and rewards to distribute, and the leaders become a law unto themselves.
The ordinary members tend to develop feelings of gratitude and loyalty to the leaders, especially those who have suffered over decades, and many leaders become megalomanic. ‘The overwhelming self-esteem on the part of the leaders diffuses a powerful suggestive influence, whereby the masses are confirmed in their admiration for their leaders, and it thus proves a source of enhanced power.’ In other words, the organisation comes almost to belong to the leaders and the situation can get even worse, for the possibility of a career within the party and perhaps the government is likely to attracts a less idealistic kind of person!
Large-scale social organisations are incompatible with democracy, and as I noted a few weeks ago, when this ‘iron law of oligarchy’ is hoisted atop that Bolshevik folly know as ‘democratic centralism’, as in the PPP, the result is even more horrendous for internal organisational democracy. Allowing the development of electoral factions within organisations is one way of curtailing the entrenchment of oligarchies.
During the 2021 People’s National Congress (PNC) leadership elections, the old oligarchy was retrenched by the membership who believed that the leadership of Mr. David Granger and his APNU+AFC coalition government did not properly address the concerns of the African people that make up the vast majority its membership. The battle in the PNC today is between the old oligarchy and their yet to be securely entrenched successors, and while, by the look of things, the former has now lost, the difference between the two appears only cosmetic.
The demise of the old – not necessarily elderly – guard is not surprising and the new guard is in danger of making similar mistakes. For decades, ethnicity and the ethnic divide have been a most important fact of Guyanese political reality, but the PNC plays right into the hands of the PPP by not being able to transition from the old assimilationist ideology of its founder leader Forbes Burnham and ideologically locate themselves in a space that will allow them to constitutionally entrench the interest of their core supporters. If anything, the old guard took off in the opposite direction, appearing to deny the existence of an ethnic sorun.
For example, during a meeting with largely PPP supporters in New York running up to the 2015 elections, it was reported that ‘Mr. Granger appeared to circumvent the idea that race plays any part in the thinking of voting Guyanese. We did not hear Mr. Granger admit that fact … In fact, he took pains to deny that race is any factor. And, if there is no racial voting, then no need to talk about a solution.
He referred to his own multi-cultural, multi-racial family and to the people he knew as “mixed. … The racial question was tossed aside.’ Thus Mr. Mike Persaud, who helped to organise the meeting for Mr. Granger, lamented ‘Mr. Granger and the PNC have got to face squarely the racial and political arithmetic of Guyana: … the fact that the majority (of people) vote race. You need an electoral strategy to make your candidate and party appealing to your target constituency’ (‘Granger disappointed on the question of an apology for PNC excesses’ SN: 03/06/2014).
The current representatives of the old oligarchy appear to be no better. In his endorsement of Mr. Joseph Harmon for the leadership of the PNC in 2021, Mr. Roysdale Forde, a recent contender for the party leadership, was widely reported as saying that ‘The PNC is not a Black people party. It has not, it has never been, and it must never be.’ He was at the time trying to differentiate Harmon from Norton by suggesting that the latter, who was usually a vigorous supporter for Africans rights, would turn the PNC into a ‘Black people party’.
The claim by the PNC and PPP that they are multi-ethnic parties is at best aspirational. In practice, the PPP, with a political history rooted in racism, has organisationally totally closed off its ethnic constituency, but over the last two decades have used the present constitution and arms of the state to inflict all kinds of undemocratic, underhand and costly measures upon the African community and their real or perceived organisations to win their support or force them to migrate.
I was invited to attend the recent controversial PNC congress and before this article is published the voting for the leader of the party will have been completed. Not that it appears to matter, since Norton’s main contenders wisely (in my assessment) threw in the towel. Mr. Norton made a powerful all-encompassing presentation that suggests that if he wins, he will usher in an era of equality, inclusiveness, human development and democracy and ethnic harmony, the like of which has never been seen in Guyana!
I took the opportunity to quietly congratulate him on his presentation and to ask ‘What if you lose?’ Evvel you are in a competitive democratic process, losing must be a possibility. Norton has sensibly and rightly been very careful of African interests, so should he lose does he intend to leave his largely African constituency to the less than tender mercies of the PPP? I hope not, but by ignoring the largely bicommunal nature of society, that is precisely what he is set upon doing.
In short, what got the old guard in trouble is his present position. This is what I meant when I said that there appears only a cosmetic difference between the two. It is of paramount importance that in this ethnically divided society the rights of African, indeed of all peoples, be strongly constitutionally and practically protected to prevent the present obnoxious behaviour of the PPP regardless of who wins.