Robert Buddan, ContributorBY THIS time next week the ruling PNP will have a new leader. On Saturday next, between 3,700 and 3,944 delegates (based on the preliminary numbers) will be eligible to vote. The majority will come from constituency groups (about two-thirds), the National Executive Council (225), Life Members (57), the National Workers Union (50), Councillors (46), and overseas arms and affiliates (11).
They will choose the person best able to govern the country, to unite the party, to command the support of the people, and to win another election for the party. They will have to rank these considerations in their own order of importance, but as a package these will be the main considerations.
The delegates are at once the jury of the party, the conscience of its broader membership and national supporters, and the intelligence of the party's democracy. They are the grass roots of the party and its elite, the basic units of its democracy, and an electoral college representing the party's political community. The PNP regards itself as the leading organisation in Jamaica's national movement. The delegates will therefore have to determine which candidate best represents the party's traditions for building Jamaica's future, the current vision of that future, and the mission to get us there.
A good aid to doing this is the recently published book, Jamaica: The Way Forward, launched on February 16. It is a compilation of the presentations made at the Political Leadership Forum at UWI in 2005 by Bruce Golding and the contenders for leadership in the PNP Peter Phillips, Omar Davis, Karl Blythe and Portia Simpson Miller. The PNP contenders spoke of their views on taking Jamaica forward.
The presentations addressed such issues as why each candidate thinks he/she is the best person to lead the PNP and govern Jamaica; a defence by each of his/her performance as MP and minister of government; how each candidate understands the major problems facing Jamaica; and what the policy responses would be. The sponsors of the presentations and the book - the Mona School of Business, the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute of Social and Economic Studies, the Department of Government, and UWI's Centre for Leadership and Governance - are all to be congratulated on this very timely publication. Ignorance cannot pass as an excuse for how delegates vote.
DELEGATING RESPONSIBILITY
Delegates are entrusted with this critical decision of who should lead their party and the nation. The party has delegated this responsibility to them to fulfil on behalf of the broad membership. Carrying out this responsibility is not an easy task. They cannot delegate the power of decision-making away for money or for any irresponsible reason. Delegates have the responsibility to make intelligent choices. Democracy calls for deliberation. The group structure provides the basis for deliberative democracy within the party's own structure. Delegates must take the remaining days to consult, ask questions, and try to know the candidates and their plans as best as they can.
Delegates won't vote of their own 'free will'. They are delegates of party groups. They are social beings and party members. They must also vote in consideration of what others believe.
Some delegates have long-standing loyalty to one candidate or the other. Some trust the judgement of their MP and will be influenced by him. Their peers in their party group and region will obviously influence their decision. They will take the polls into consideration, that is, what people across the country think about the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate. Voting is a conflict between the rational, the sociological and the personal.
The delegates will hear rumours about bribe-giving and bribe-taking; and about smear campaigns. It is for them to judge who to trust with the future of their party. But they are people too. They have their personal biases for and against candidates, fears over what might happen if some candidates become leader, and personal peeves against candidates. All of these will affect how they vote. It would be instructive to the party, after the vote, to survey the delegates to find out why they have voted the way they have, to use the vote as a feedback mechanism for the good of the party.
DELEGATING THE PARTY
Delegates do not only vote. They are constituency members and citizens who have views about the party and government that reflect the views of the wider society. They have a role in mandating the candidates to address the issues of society. They have frustrations over the quality of representation and lack of guidance about how to access government programmes for themselves and their communities. Their votes must be understood by the candidates to be a vote of confidence that the candidate will do for the society what was promised.
Delegates must also learn to take responsibility. They are not just ordinary citizens. They are party leaders in their communities. Some delegates expect handouts and believe the party should be an avenue of patronage. They cannot convert their roles of party delegates to that of party clients. Many have to appreciate the noble responsibilities of democratic citizenship. The campaign is an opportunity to change the political culture within the party.
It is also an opportunity for the middle and upper class supporters who have gone on the road for their candidates to sustain this involvement in politics at the grass roots. Influential business people must not only back candidates, they must be out in front of the people. For years now political scholars and practitioners have bemoaned the virtual absence of the middle class from political work to educate, organise, and inform those in the party who need political education and motivation.
The campaigns have provided an opportunity for the candidates and their families, sponsors and close friends to know more of the delegates and more about their circumstances and for the candidates to sell their vision of Jamaica directly to those delegates. These connections are important if the party is to bond and inspire itself. There has been too much of a social distance between families and classes of people who belong to the same political movement. Elections force these people to meet each other. Democracy requires that they sustain the bonds they have formed.
Politics is essentially a voluntary activity. The commercial values of modern society have made it difficult for many to appreciate the need to give free time for any activity. The campaigns provide an opportunity to build a new spirit of voluntarism in national political life. The campaigns show that people can find time if they really try.
DELEGATING GOVERNMENT
The most important responsibility of the delegates is that they will be effectively delegating the power of prime minister to the person they elect as party president. Constitutionally, of course, it is the parliamentarians who have this power, but I presume that party tradition will follow and the party president will be elected the parliamentary leader.
Government, too, must be governed and delegates must think about which candidate has the ability to carry the party's MPs with him or her; how much respect the person commands in Cabinet and as a minister. But all of the candidates are governors in a collective, and in the final analysis it falls to all of them to accept the winner, unite the party and proceed to address the major issues of the country. The new administration will start with some positives. Economic prospects are good and crime is going down. It is timely for delegates and candidates to recall Nelson Mandela's charge: "Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great. You can be that generation."
Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the Department of Government at the University of the West Indies, Mona. Email: robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm
