In all democratic countries, the development of liberal institutions has been accompanied by the growth of political parties. These act as intermediaries between the electorate and the government of the day.
Political parties have diverse and important functions. They promote popular interest and mobilise participation in the political life of the country. They present candidates for successive electoral contests and campaign on their behalf. They reflect the active interest of different groups gathered under their umbrella. They formulate policies, discuss issues, and rally support for the government of the day and the Opposition to it.
Democracy relies increasingly on the mobilisation of the electorate, and each party has to build up a machine staffed by “professionals” to cope with organisation, economics and development, social issues, research, publicity, party finances, and international political links among other things.
This calls for managerial ability if a political party is to have a machine capable of inspiring mass support and preparing itself for the responsibilities of government or effective Opposition.
Party officials are supposed to be the servants of the party – the people who ensure that the motor works at full throttle under the direction of the leadership. In a truly democratic party, the officials work in close association with the supreme leaders elected by the grassroots.
In the case of Malta, the Nationalist Party elects an administrative and executive committee. The MLP elects a national executive committee. But, in each case, it is necessary for policy to be discussed within the movement and in properly constituted conferences that transmit messages expressing the will of the mass movement to the leadership.
In the case of the MLP, the situation is even more clearly defined: the final authority is its delegates’ conference or, as Clement Attlee once put it “the parliament of the movement”.
There is the ever present danger that party bureaucrats take the upper hand, and manipulate power in an arbitrary way, denying the grassroots their democratic right to have their say and, at times, going against their interests. The decision of faceless PN “strategists” some time back, to deny the citizens of Marsa and Zejtun their right to vote in local elections, was a flagrant example in this category. This rocks the boat. It offends the democratic sentiment. It is disconcerting, as it produces a situation where the tail wags the dog.
It implies that, if and where this happens, the democratic process ceases to work, and the authority and rights of the grassroots are usurped to make democracy stand on its head. It is one thing to institutionalise party machinery, entrusting it in the hands of elected “expert” functionaries, and another to usurp the democratic rights of the grassroots.
This is a problem that must be addressed on an ongoing basis by all political parties, in the interest of democratic development.
What seems to be missing is enough lively political activity by the district and local committees providing interaction between the grassroots and the party machinery. Unless this is solved satisfactorily, and unless possible abuse is nipped in the bud, the end product would be a caricature of democracy, of the kind once described by Oriana Fallaci (A Man. p.401) as follows:
“… A party is a party, an organisation a clique, a mafia, at best a sect which does not allow its adepts to express their own personality, their own creativity. On the contrary, it destroys them or, at least, it twists them.
“A party works like a business, an industry, where the general manager (the leader) and the board of directors (the Central Committee) hold an indivisible power. To hang on to it, they hire only obedient managers, servile employees, yes men: in other words, men who are not men, robots who always agree.
“In a business, an industry, the general manager and the board of directors have no use for intelligent persons endowed with initiative, for men and women who say ‘no’, and the reason for this goes even beyond their arrogance: to them, the men and women who say ‘no’ represent a disturbing element, sabotage. They put sand in the gears of the machine; they become wrenches thrown into the works.
“The system of a party, and of a business, is like that of an army, in which the private obeys the corporal who, in turn, obeys the sergeant who, in turn, obeys the captain, who, in turn, obeys the colonel who, in turn, obeys the general who, in turn, obeys the supreme command…
“Too bad for the deluded person who believes he can make a personal contribution through discussion and exchange of ideas. He ends up expelled or demoted or liquidated, as is right for one who is unable to understand that, in a party, a business, he is allowed to discuss only orders already given, choices already made. Provided it is understood tacitly, the discussion respects the two sacred principles: obedience and loyalty.”
Human nature being what it is, power corrupts, and a truly democratic party, however tightly organised must, at all costs, recognise the sovereignty of the grassroots and be, for ever, open to its views.
In the light of the foregoing, what do the residents of Qui-si-Sana and Marsascala have to say when decisions are taken over their head, to the detriment of their way of life, and in open defiance of their very vocal and unmistakable protests?
The same applies to citizens outraged by so many decisions, taken by Mepa and by overzealous Ministers, involving perceived threats to our national heritage.
Suppressing or bypassing the grassroots has its inevitable costs. It feeds the fires of resentment and could be disrupting in the short term, even divisive in the medium and long term.
There are two sides to the coin of party politics. One side nourishes democratic development. The other side poisons it.
That is why the currency of democracy can be tricky. In the wrong hands it can turn democrats into mummies, and worthless, up-and-coming politicians into sycophants.
The answer is to give a wide berth to the “wrong hands”.
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