Parties as machines

The People's National Party (PNP) is holding its annual conference this weekend and the public session of the conference is today. The keynote speaker will, of course, be the party president, Portia Simpson Miller. The party well knows that elections are due by next September. It says it is "progressive, strong and ready".

Indeed, the party recently launched its Progressive Agenda. This is not a manifesto. Rather, it establishes the principles and policy framework for the more strategic and specific plans that will be contained in the manifesto. The difference is important. Parties are often seen as vote-getting machines. That is why they present campaign manifestos. The PNP has also seen itself as a nation-building machine. That is why it has produced thinking pieces like the Progressive Agenda.

Parties are often thought of as machines. They are machines to mobilise. But it is important to distinguish electoral parties from other parties. Electoral parties use their party machines to mobilise the electorate every five years; use their business machines to mobilise their sponsors to provide funding; use their constituency machines to mobilise their activists on the ground; and use their media and information machines to mobilise their propagandists to bias public opinion in their favour.

The Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is pretty much an electoral machine. The party was formed in 1943 when it became apparent that the British were going to grant Jamaicans 21 and older the right to vote. Bustamante wanted to head a party in order to legitimise his seat at the table among those discussing Jamaica's new Constitution. But the party grew out of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union. Both union and party were personal organisations of Bustamante's.

The PNP was a nation-building machine. The nation-building machine tries to mobilise more constantly. But it is difficult to get people to pay attention, volunteer, and do serious work outside election seasons, if economic times are hard and if the major financial sponsors are afraid of mobilisation parties. They can lapse into resembling electoral machines.

The PNP, however, was formed fully six years before those first elections in 1944. At that time, the British had not promised Jamaicans their full right to vote. The PNP started out to win that right and to build a democratic and independent nation.

Naturally, the PNP needed to win elections in order to build the nation from the seat of government. Sometimes the party concentrated too much on this, and some party members and leaders misunderstood the party, thinking of it as an election machine first and foremost. That has been costly to the party.

The Difference

As a nation-building party, the PNP has, nonetheless, always been a strong supporter of regionalism. It sees region-building and nation-building as complementary. The region is a sort of extended family of the nation. The PNP has always justified itself in Jamaica's and the Caribbean's history, as part of the historical movement for freedom from slavery, colonialism and suppression of rights. The PNP, whether one agrees with its ideas or not, has always put those ideas out, not just for winning elections or for running government, but for long-term nation-building. That is why, for example, it promoted the 2030 national development plan and its Progressive Agenda.

The JLP, on the other hand, has got itself into serious trouble because it puts elections first. This is really why it ended up in bed with persons like 'Dudus' Coke and his gang. That is what the Americans confirmed when they spoke about Coke's role as 'soldier' intimidating others on behalf of the JLP. Because election machines rely so much on activists, and because activists can easily become paramilitary-type 'soldiers', they bring violence to elections. They capture the party constituency organisations and, unfortunately, in many constituencies it becomes difficult to distinguish between the party as a political party and the party as a violent gang.

Similarly, because it places so much emphasis on winning elections, the JLP also gets into bed with big money, sometimes of dubious integrity. That is why the business class captured the JLP from under Sir Alexander's nose and gradually took it over. Ironically, the same Bruce Golding who left the party to start something new and different came back to it under the cloud of 'tainted money'. In January 2009, a Gleaner editorial beseeched Mr Golding to look beyond electoral politics and provide transformational leadership to the country. The Jamaica Development Infrastructure Programme (JDIP) scandal proves how futile this call was.

The PNP's Progressive Agenda promises to restore transparency and accountability to national governance. It has criticised the Road Maintenance Fund and JDIP for being neither above board nor for being equitable. Even JLP Councillor Fernandez Smith has said JDIP lacks transparency and has questioned the way Government selects projects to spend on.

The PNP says 75 per cent of JDIP money is to be spent in JLP constituencies in the coming election year, 2011-12, a massive $13 billion. PNP constituencies are only earmarked for $4 billion. This is a most clear bit of evidence that the JLP is an electoral party.

Pork-barrel projects

Had it been a nation-building party, it would have selected projects based on their potential to grow the economy, to create jobs and to stimulate business wherever that potential was greatest. It has not done so. It has chosen to spend billions of dollars on pork-barrel projects. There is nothing progressive in that. It is downright regressive.

It was this same JLP that had turned by-elections into 'buy'-elections, having come to power with candidates who were not qualified under the Constitution to sit in Parliament. JLP leader, Bruce Golding proceeded to embarrass the Constitution and the electors by admitting that he knew all along that they had held dual citizenship. That is the logic of electoral parties.

It is against this background that the PNP's Progressive Agenda must now move from being a thinking piece to being a test case. As part of its preparation for power, the PNP must test its principles against actual cases of misgovernance. I was interested, therefore, to hear Dr Omar Davies explain how the party tends to treat the misgovernance evident in the RMF/JDIP.

The party's Progressive Agenda is strong on transparency and accountability. At a press conference last Wednesday, Dr Omar Davies demanded that the Government route the JDIP expenditure through the Estimates of Expenditure; make the selection criteria for projects public; apply the normal procurement regulations to the selection of subcontractors; appoint an independent assessor for the project; pursue or complete the assessments being carried out by the auditor general and the contractor general; and meet with the Chinese ambassador to communicate its concerns to preserve good faith in the relations between the two countries and for taxpayers' interest in this project.

I take these demands to constitute the template that the PNP will use for projects that it undertakes during its administration. That would be a most welcome example of the Progressive Agenda in action.

Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, Department of Government, UWI. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and Robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.