Robert BuddanPOLITICAL REFORMS happen when the right people (reformers) are in the right positions (in parties and governments) and when they have the general sentiment of the population on their side. Reformers in the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) are hoping to get the right people in positions in the party at the November conference. Reformers in the People's National Party (PNP) are already in position and this includes Mr. Patterson himself.
What both parties need are programmes for reform and these are being worked out. Many ideas towards such programmes have been debated between academics and through dialogue with politicians. Last week I presented some assessments of what is wrong with the Jamaican system and what can be done about it. These were offered by our politicians and parties. It is instructive to see how academics have been thinking as well. Some of these academics are actually engaged in the process of change so their ideas do have presence in the thinking of politicians. One of the values of the academic contribution is that it brings ideas gained from understanding reform in a number of other countries (including the Caribbean region) and it is free from political constraints.
By 2001, as many as 11 countries of CARICOM had embarked on or were considering reform of their constitutions. The concern with change has therefore been region-wide. In January 2002, an important conference was held in Barbados on Constitutional Reform in the Caribbean. It brought academics, politicians and representatives of other sectors together. The main concern was how to make democracy work better. At the 12th intercessional meeting in Barbados 2001, CARICOM Heads of Government recommitted themselves to democracy and the principles of the Charter of Civil Society and the Declaration on Democracy and Popular Participation.
Some of the major themes in the dialogue on reform have been:
Re-assessing the Westminster system of government with a view to modifying it or making radical departures from it.
Strengthening human rights protection and judicial
independence.
Emphasising human
development priorities in constitutions.
Making constitutions compatible with the goals of regional integration.
Establishing new standards of governance to strengthen performance, integrity and transparency. There are two areas for reform that seem to capture most discussion: shared governance and participatory politics.
SHARED GOVERNANCE
As long ago as 1965, the Nobel Laureate Sir Arthur Lewis came out as a critic of the Westminster system. In bemoaning the winner-takes-all governing formula he said, "To exclude the losing groups from participation in decision making clearly violates the primary meaning of democracy". Sir Arthur preferred some kind of power-sharing formula. The idea of power-sharing has captured much attention in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana where ethnic exclusion under the winner-takes-all formula produces ethnic winners and losers.
The idea has support in Jamaica as well. Trevor Munroe favours, "the building of bridges between the major parties, at all levels, and between the parties and new formations, civic and political... The redesigning of Government and the reform of the constitution would have as one aim dilution of monopoly of power and the encouragement of power-sharing at all levels."
The problem is not merely an academic invention. Prime Minister Owen Arthur of Barbados says there must be something wrong with a political system in which "the victor gets all the spoils" and Bruce Golding anguished over the other side of the coin that, "when you are in opposition, you control nothing". Michael Manley felt that the structural compulsion to win bred patronage and tribalism. He favoured a system of wide consultations.
Trinidadian Opposition Leader, Basdeo Panday, has talked about power-sharing and so too have the Jagan-Jagdeo leaderships in Guyana. Selwyn Ryan, professor of political science in Trinidad and Tobago, uses the phrase "shared governance" to connote an idea which might be something less than executive power-sharing but would include Guyana's experiment in forming Multiparty Joint Committees in the legislature to find common ground and make recommendations on policy. Shared governance would include leadership summits and extending the number of chairmanships of parliamentary committees to the Opposition.
PARTICIPATORY POLITICS
A number of persons like Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves (of St. Vincent and the Grenadines) and Professor Neville Duncan criticise the 'commandist' and centrist style of decision-making of Caribbean politics. This style belongs to an old political culture. Trevor Munroe points out that 80 per cent of people believed in an authoritarian democracy at the time of Jamaica's Independence. This has led to what the PNP's 21st Century Mission document says is an outdated belief on the part of the public and their leaders that politicians have all the answers to everything.
Parliaments and elections do not provide sufficient opportunities for participatory politics. Parliaments in small legislatures cannot provide effective oversight and accountability; do not have sufficient resources to properly staff parliamentary committees; and tend to act as a rubber stamp for the executive. Elections do not solve the problem of Government accountability to citizens between elections.
Trevor Munroe and Neville Duncan, lecturers in the Department of Government, University of the West Indies (UWI), belong to a growing number of people around the world who believe that there must be more direct forms of democracy crafted onto the system of representative democracy. Gonsalves calls this communitarian participation. They mean that political systems should resort to more frequent use of referenda, citizens' fora and electronic democracy so that citizens can deliberate among themselves, connect with their leaders and make inputs into policy. The PNP Government has made advances in this area through the Parish Development Committees and through published statements that its governance reforms envision a greater role for citizens' fora. The JLP came to acknowledge the idea of social governance in its 2002 Manifesto and has established social governance committees at local government levels. All sectors across the region recognise the demand by civil society groups for their own political space.
Good governance defined as shared governance is one thing, good politics defined as participatory politics is another.
Former Barbadian Ambassador, Courtney Blackman, insists
that there can be no substitute
for good politics. In other words, shared governance
must be accompanied by
participatory politics.
