Robert Buddan, ContributorEARL DELISSER is the National Democratic Movement's new president and he has put his finger on two of the major reasons why the party has not been as successful as had been expected.
The NDM got carried away with the power of its message of change and did not put in enough time and effort to build a national organisation at the local level; and, the NDM was not prepared to fight a long-term battle to establish itself but was too ambitious in believing in and focusing on an immediate electoral victory.
There are important lessons to learn from this distinction between message and organisation.
The People's National Party had committed the first error initially. Its message of self-government and nation-building seemed to warrant little marketing but when the Jamaica Labour Party was formed later, Bustamante's grassroots popularity wiped away the PNP at the first general and local government elections (under adult suffrage). The party then put work into grassroots organisation and has become a leading force since.
Now Paul Burke has pointed to some disturbing signs. Under his chairmanship of Region Three, he reports that he has not been given enough support at the highest levels for reshaping and rebuilding the group structure of the party so that there can be greater community democracy.
GRASSROOTS POLITICS
Grassroots politics has a long tradition in the PNP. Michael Manley himself had distanced his pro-market economic liberalisation from that of Margaret Thatcher's on the grounds that he maintained a commitment to party and trade union organisation among the people. He warned the party not to lose its connection with the people. Burke finds that the PNP has not been paying enough attention to this at a cost to the party in recent elections.
Burke is reported as saying, "rather than genuine group organisations and a strong and vibrant system of internal democracy, many of our leaders within the party do not wish to divest or share power and authority with the community." Burke wants more focus on internal party democracy, divesting power from the centre along with stronger performance and performance sanctions.
At the same time, reports coming out of the PNP's last National Executive Council are that Mr. Patterson called for party reform and was serious that the party needed to get rid of its incompetent, lazy and corrupt members and establish a new image. In addition, the party's appraisal of its performance in the last two elections was stinging.
The PNP has reached a critical juncture at which it must decide in unambiguous fashion whether its reformist thinking (and there is definitely that) is going to be profound or cosmetic. It seems that the country has moved ahead of the cosmetics and wants a real face-lift.
PARTIES AND CHANGE
Parties should not fear or resist democratic change. Germany's experience with fascist parties forced it to adopt Basic Law of 1949 which mandated that the internal organisation of political parties should conform to democratic principles.
The political parties of the United States faced the same challenge from progressive reformers in the 20th century. At the turn of the last century, corrupt political bosses dominated party machines in cities and states. Mayor Richard Daley's machine in Chicago was one of the most notorious. The difference between party machines and criminal organisations was often indistinguishable. Major reforms to the Democratic Party after 1968 required the party's state organisations to conduct their affairs in accordance with laws established by states and to break the power of party bosses by giving more power to ordinary party members to nominate candidates and vote in internal party elections.
After Britain's 2001 elections, the Labour Party was forced to establish a Democracy, Citizenship and Political Engagement Policy Commission to study the reasons for the record low election turn- out and more precisely, the reasons for political disengagement, especially by young voters and the levels of cynicism towards and despair about politics and the party. Turnout in that year's local government elections was even lower than in Jamaica's last.
LOCAL VS CENTRAL POWER
Power within democratic parties often swings back and forth between centre and local levels. Despite the interest in intra-party democracy, influence sometimes swing back to the centre when party membership is low, the influence of local party workers is weak and the centre plays a strong role in fund-raising.
A recent report on intra-party democracy in western Europe points out that a number of studies in the 1990s have found an increasing trend within political parties towards centralisation and the concomitant marginalisation of grassroots members and activists. Survey data have recorded falling levels of membership and declining levels of activism over the past 30 years.
The real problem therefore might be that local power is declining, not because central leaders refuse to share power, but because local people are withdrawing from politics leading to centralisation by default.
If people are withdrawing from politics or are less active in politics, it might have less to do with party organisation and more to do with changes in societies. Ideological realignment has lessened the depth of partisanship, parties are no longer seen as the sole vehicles of participation in politics, and parties rely on building wider but shallower coalitions of support.
LIMITS OF GRASSROOTS DEMOCRACY
Furthermore, grassroots democracy is not, by itself the answer. If this were so, Green parties would be doing much better. Greens (or ecological parties, common in Europe) are built purposely as grassroots organisations to promote "new politics". This means that they are organised "bottom-up" rather than "top-down". Party democracy and rank-and-file participation are cherished as goals in themselves. Such decentralist parties differ from electoralist parties by being built for grassroots-style, direct democracy where power rests with individual members and activists.
Local branches have considerable freedom of action and strong regional organisations. So distrustful of centralisation are these parties that one refused to even elect a leader, having two spokespersons rotating in office instead. They establish close relations with other grassroots social movements (reformist and transformist NGOs) and their programmes are often built around respect for nature and environment, social (distributive) justice and international solidarity.
But most of these parties are minor or marginal parties. The British Greens, for example, usually receive less than one per cent of national votes. The Green parties represent the best ideal of internally democratic parties and arose in opposition to the traditional electoral, hierarchical, materialist parties. But their failure to win governing majorities suggests that the problem with parties go deeper than just the need to change an organisation from a top-down to a bottom-up organisation.
REGION THREE
Yet there is no denying that strong local party organisations are important to party democracy. A central problem in all political parties has been over the relative powers of central and local party organisations, especially in nominating and electing candidates for party offices.
The problems that Paul Burke points to go back years before. In the Region's report of 2000 to the party's annual conference, Burke reported that Region Three had fallen from being one of the strongest to being one of the weakest Regions. Many constituency and divisional organisations were not functioning effectively. It was difficult to motivate party members. Many local party leaders were unemployed or without a stable income. They were caught up in a daily struggle for survival.
The party's basic structure revolves around party groups. Yet, many groups had become defunct. Besides, the real purpose and function of the groups needed clear redefinition. With some exceptions, many Members of Parliament were criticised for not attending regional meetings and assisting the groups. They were more interested in using the groups as a power base. The Region was close to crisis and needed special attention.
Candidates for the chairmanship of Region Three, Omar Davies and Allan Rickards, have a lot of work to do. Rickards has the ground experience but Davies has the ministerial clout. As I have insisted, contests for party positions must be fought with plans for rebuilding and reform.
Unless such ideas are presented, the contests will be presented to the public as power positioning and strategic manoeuvring. People want more than this. Region Three should be the beginning of the party's demonstration of its commitment to reforming and rebuilding its democratic base.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Mona Campus, UWI. E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.jm
