Robert Buddan THE PEOPLE'S National Party's (PNP) 65th Annual Conference has come and gone. I regard it as a historic conference although the media did not seem to capture the magnitude of what the conference represented. At this conference the Party committed itself to a serious makeover. In future years it is this conference that political historians will be looking at to date the starting point of a fundamentally new phase in the Party's development. I urge those who keep watch on the life and changes of Jamaican political parties to keep a keen eye on the PNP from hereon.
The process has been pushed by a growing disconnection between the political culture and the political process; the ongoing consequences of globalisation; failures in the party organisation to keep up and by the fall-off in support for the Party.
In truth, this process of rethinking and soul searching began in 1998 when the Party began work on its 21st Century Mission in search of a new paradigm. About this time the Party also began to look seriously at its constitution to make some necessary amendments. It established an Appraisal Committee in early 2003 to assess its performance in the 2002 General Elections and in June 2003 (before the Local Government elections) it's Policy Review Commission began to look at the challenges to governance that face the Party and Government in key policy areas such as economic policy, social policy, infrastructure and the environment. Then from July the Party Officers began to prepare insightful reports for the just concluded annual Conference in September.
WHAT KIND OF PARTY?
In her last Report as General Secretary, Maxine Henry-Wilson put the critical issue on the line. She said there was "the danger of the Party becoming an election machine rather than a Movement for transformation" and that the Party seems to have forgot that its core business is to advocate progress on behalf of the Jamaican people.
Indeed, of its seven national objectives (in the Party's Constitution, Revised, 1996), only the fifth objective mentions the Party's role in nominating and supporting Members for elections. The first four, the sixth and seventh objectives address the role of the Party as a Movement.
In one of its recent evaluations, the Party made a clear and strong statement about the priority that should be given to winning over the people as against winning elections. It said, "The national Party, the People's National Party, is losing its national character, the character that gave the PNP a natural majority and has placed it at the centre of the national movement for 60 years. Winning elections is not what gave the PNP this national character. Winning elections was a consequence of that character." The Party now wants to rebuild this national character in order to resume leadership of the national movement.
One main implication of this is that the Party wants to rid itself of the tribal reputation and the worst practices of tribalism that it has become associated with. It wants to be a national party rather than a tribal party. The Party accepts that, while it has been in the forefront of the most progressive developments in Jamaica it has also succumbed to some of the worst political practices and some of the worst elements of society (of all classes).
The other implication is that the Party wants to put national, long-term objectives of nation-building ahead of short-term strategies to win elections, whenever there is a conflict between the two. This is a radical proposition. Virtually all definitions of political parties say that parties differ from other organisations because their aim is to control Government. When this is thought of as the primary and ultimate purpose of a party and that parties do not or should not have national development as their overriding purpose, then the definition, while true of many parties, is not true about movement parties.
A PARTY OF DEVELOPMENT
Two major developments have set our parties on the course for which they are often criticised. One was competitive national elections, the other was Independence. Though major goals of democracy and self-government, they had some dark consequences. Due to the former, parties came to put elections ahead of national development. Because of the second, parties in Government came to use the state to patronise their supporters, rich and poor. Together, these have led to electoral and state tribalism. Jamaica, contrary to popular belief, is far from unique in this.
But there is a period in Jamaica's modern political history that shows how a party can contribute to national development free of the distraction of electoral politics and the temptations of state patronage. Between 1937 and 1953, Norman Manley launched and developed Jamaica Welfare Limited, an organisation that is the forerunner to modern civil society and far ahead of its time.
Manley had correctly concluded that the colonial state had no interest in Jamaica's national development. But his party was not in power to do anything for development. He determined that development had to come from below, from the people themselves, acting through their own organisations. It is from this that he developed ideas about self-reliance and community development. Jamaica Welfare promoted numerous organisations across the island for skills training, literacy, co-operatives, credit unions, family planning, small business, sports clubs, youth employment, care for the aged, help for the handicapped, literary societies and so on.
In so doing, Manley and the PNP did more for grassroots development from outside Government and without initial thought of elections than the colonial/Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) governments did between 1944 and 1953, not discounting the benefits of the early JLP Governments.
By 1949, the PNP, by working among the people, had won more votes than the JLP (although the JLP won more seats) even though Bustamante was at the height of his popularity. By 1953, the PNP had been rewarded with its first election victory.
Manley's movement showed that working for the people brings its own reward and if electoral reward is one then so be it. But more than this, Manley's civil society movement then became the basis for government. Many of the responsibilities of these community organisations were taken up by the state as new government ministries were formed. The Party's initiatives among the people formed the basis for social governance.
NEW TIMES AND NEW PARTY
The times and the society of Norman Manley have changed. The PNP today is trying to find a Party that can work for society under very different conditions - globalisation, new standards of governance, the anti-political culture, the rate of crime, the decline of the spirit of volunteerism, the limitations of the state and the crisis of communities.
It now talks in terms of transformation, reinvention, re-engineering, repositioning and even about creating a brand new party. The eventual shape and form of this new incarnation will take comprehensive and broad-based deliberation but the process is underway. There are concrete signs of this.
I believe that Dr. Robertson's contest for Vice-President was designed for persons who believe in transformation and can be in positions to make it happen. I believe that Dr. Davies' decision to run for chairman of the very important Region Three is part of the same design. After all, the National Executive Committee has accepted the principle of transformation and the Party's commissions, especially its Policy Review Commission, are more active in working out the new mission of the Party.
Another important sign of the changes came from the NEC on Sunday last. The decisions to have a full-time General Secretary and four (rather than two) Deputy General Secretaries are part of a plan to put the Secretariat on a new foundation of management and financing to gear the Party for its new work in research, communications, recruitment, and organisational building.
Norman Manley saw the PNP as a movement and its mission as transformative. This generation of the PNP has a difficult task of making this vision work in these times. But it must find this vision and relaunch the Party on its 21st Century Mission.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona. E-mail: Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
