Posted February 24th. 2003. - Special Feature by David Hinds

What do they know of democracy?

Today I reprint the second of a series of articles written between 1993 and 1998 in the Caribbean Daylight newspaper. Hopefully they would tell us how far we have come from then and test how much the writer was on target or not.

This article was written in May 1997-almost six years ago-at a time when both the PPP and PNC were preparing to do battle in the election due later that year. Both parties flatly rejected the plea for constitutional reform before the elections. The PPP insisted that Guyana was a democracy, but as CLR James would ask, "What do they know of democracy who only democracy knows" The 1997 election and its aftermath are now written in the blood and tears of the innocent.

The Caribbean is usually referred to as one of the most democratic regions of the world. This is a myth. The basis for that claim is the region's general adherence to the parliamentary system and the holding of periodic competitive, free and fair elections. Given the prevalence of one-party states and the lack of competitive elections in most ex-colonies, the Caribbean is said to be quite stable politically. Consequently, some people would have us believe that the sum total of democracy is free and fair elections; that all you have to do to satisfy the democratic requirement is to have a love affair every five years.

Electoral parties, in particular, tend to operate as if the world begins and ends with elections. Everything they do in between elections is geared towards preparing for the next election. They would do almost anything to win an election. It is the passport to heaven. Some parties, therefore, come to power on the basis of free and fair elections, yet rule in the most undemocratic manner.

There is an argument that too much democracy is not good; it leads to disorder and anarchy. What nonsense! You either have democracy or you don't have democracy. I know that the term democracy means different things to different people, but to most people it constitutes things such as freedom from, freedom to, freedom of, equality, fair play, liberty, and justice. Some of us have argued that our Caribbean from the period of slavery to the present has never been democratic. Any system that is based on domination of any sort is by definition undemocratic. Pure and simple.

Although the Caribbean has gotten rid of colonialism, it has retained most, if not all, of the institutions of the colonial state. This state system was oppressive in nature and geared towards upholding and protecting the interests of the ruling class. And because the ruling class was of a particular race group, it was also geared towards upholding racial domination. With the attainment of constitutional independence this oppressive state system was left in place. It was buttressed by constitutions that generally gave enormous powers to the rulers. I submit, therefore, that despite the parliamentary system and free and fair elections, the post-colonial Caribbean political system is in essence undemocratic.

For example, the Prime Minister or Executive President and his or her cabinet have a free hand to do a lot of things so long as they are supported by a majority of the parliament There is no separation of the powers of the three branches of government. The Prime Minister appoints the judicial branch without input from the legislative branch. The legislative branch for the most part functions as a rubber stamp of the executive branch, which is where the power lies. In the case of Guyana, the party leader decides who represents the party in parliament. Even in the other countries that have the constituency system, the leader has the biggest, if not the only, say on who runs in a particular constituency.

There is no system of "checks and balance," hence, no oversight of the executive branch. The opposition is supposed to be the watchdog, but it cannot do so within the constitutional framework, even though most of the region's constitutions designate the opposition leader part of the executive. However, in practice, the office is not part of the decision making process.

In these circumstances the party becomes paramount. It is the powerhouse. It controls the government and state. Burnham was bold enough to declare paramountcy as formal policy, but the others practice it without declaring it. The state in the Caribbean, therefore, functions like a one party state. Hence, there is need for constitutional reform aimed at putting in place the framework for a democratic culture. One cannot necessarily legislate a democratic culture, but you can have laws that facilitate its flowering rather than stifling it.

The above comments are meant as a reaction to the lack of enthusiasm for constitutional reform by Guyana's two major parties, the PPP and the PNC. Both parties promised in their manifestoes in last election to work for it. Constitutional reform is even more urgent in Guyana since the existing constitution is the most obscene in the region. Burnham enacted this constitution in 1980 as part of his consolidation of authoritarian rule. Although it includes many provisions from the 1966 constitution, it made the latter look like a saintly document.

My comments are also a reaction to a comment made by the Prime Minister of Guyana, and de-facto leader of the ruling PPP. According to Mrs. Jagan, a broad-based government is not possible in Guyana at this time. She said that any one-party government has to be broad-minded. Apparently she has no problem with a government that represents just 54% of the electorate so long as the government is broad-minded. Never mind that majority represents one race group. Never mind that governments rules with a constitution that confers upon its leader kingly powers. All it has to do is to be broad-minded.

Yes, the PPP is a fairly and freely elected government, even if the 1992 election was not free from fear. But that does not make it a representative government. And that cannot be achieved by mere broad mindedness, although that is an important ingredient of good governance. Remember, there is no strong legislature or local government that can serve as a counterweight to the central government. The party that holds governmental power is all-powerful.

Let me remind you readers that Mr. Burnham came to power in free elections. Although the 1964 election was not free from fear, given the racial situation at the time, at least they were not rigged. Between 1964 and 1968 the PNC set the stage for its later authoritarian rule by manipulating the constitution, especially the electoral laws. The PNC did not manufacture the parliamentary majority it used to push these changes through. It got UF and PPP members to cross the floor--Mohamed Kassim of the UF; and the PPP's George Bowman, Mohamed Saffee and Zehuradeen. There was nothing constitutionally Jagan and D'aiguar could do to stop their members from going over to the PNC. Mr. Panday has used this strategy to good effect in Trinbago. So did Mr. Compton in St Lucia. It is interesting that the new Anthony administration in St Lucia has promised to pass legislation to prevent this occurrence.

The PNC's victory at the 1968 election came largely as a result of rigging the overseas votes and the abuse of proxy voting. Without the seats from the overseas vote the PNC would have fallen short of the majority. But overseas voting was not a PNC invention. The provision for it was written into the Independence constitution, as was the case with proxy voting. What the PNC did was to use its majority in parliament to activate overseas voting and to increase the number of proxy votes a person could cast from three to five.

The point here is that the PNC used the constitution to set the stage for its later authoritarian rule. What is to prevent the PPP from doing the same? The PPP has in its hands a constitution that is ten times more conducive to authoritarian rule than the one Burnham had in 1964. The PPP operates with the same state that the PNC operated with even if it does not have the same control over it as the PNC did.

It is not enough to win an election and assume that you have democracy. An electoral majority could degenerate into a dictatorship given Guyana's racial situation. It is not enough for us to depend on the broad-mindedness or niceness of the leaders to uphold democratic rule. There must be safeguards and laws that compel leaders to rule democratically. We have to rethink the meaning and content of Caribbean democracy, especially in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago.

According to Sir Arthur Lewis (1965), democracy has two meanings: "The primary meaning is that all who are affected by a decision should have the chance to participate in making that decision, either directly or through representatives. Its secondary meaning is that the will of the majority will prevail." These two meanings, he contends, are mutually exclusive; it's either one or the other. The European countries chose the second meaning and imposed it on its colonies at independence. But Lewis insists: "to exclude the losing groups from participating in the decision-making clearly violates the primary meaning of democracy" (p.65)

While the latter approach has worked relatively well in European societies, it has been far less effective in the plural societies of the ex-colonies. This majoritarian principle in the Westminster culture assumes that the majority once in power will embrace and address those minority interests. Most European countries and the USA can claim success with this principle precisely because they are largely homogenous societies, which exhibit a considerable degree of consensus even when there is disagreement on specific approaches. The political culture, therefore, feeds off this consensus, thus making politics and the competition for political office a relatively low intensive exercise.

Lewis concurs with this view when he likens elections under the Westminster model to "competition between businessmen to serve the consumer," and the emphasis is on "the politicians rather than the groups they represent" (p.65) and, therefore, as in business, if you win, you win and take all, and if you lose, you lose everything. He however noted that in social institutions-- family, church, university, and sports--Europeans stress compromise and teamwork rather than majority vote.

But in plural societies, such as Guyana, because politicians represent distinct groups of people with differing communal and political-tribal interests, elections are translated into contests between these groups. Further, unlike the leaders in Europe and the USA, Guyanese leaders are less dispassionate about wining or losing elections since given the undeveloped nature of the society few prestigious options exist outside the political sphere. The situation is compounded by the fact that whereas in the "class-based societies" of Europe and North America group differences are based primarily on matters of ideology or socio-economic interests, in plural societies these differences result primarily from the fact that these groups are what Lewis calls "historical enemies."

Professor Clive Thomas labels this development a "democratic contradiction" and sounded an ominous warning:

Democracy confined to free and fair elections and ignoring ethnic security, and the needs and fears of the major race groups would not be sustainable…If racial voting were to be the outcome of a free and fair election next time around, then free and fair elections might well come to be seen as a pillar of domination rather than a democratic advance, thereby leading to its rejection, and increasing the prospects of social breakdown .

It is, therefore, important that we realize that our Caribbean does not have a democratic culture; it has to be developed. Constitutional reform that has as its core some form of power sharing is a place to start. The masses of people will do the rest once they are guaranteed that elections are not a platform for the creation of winners and losers.

Dr Hinds is a University Lecturer and Political Commentator and Activist. He currently teaches Political Science at Glendale College and Mt San Antonio College in California. Please send your comments on this article to dhinds6106@aol.com.

For more information about and analysis of Guyanese and Caribbean politics click here at guyanacaribbeanpolitics.com.