Robert Buddan
IN FEBRUARY 2006, the PNP held vice-presidential elections. One radio host covering the event was quite insistent that the elections would be determined by the power of patronage. The thrust of her argument was that politicians get power by awarding contracts to those who are willing to give money to their campaigns, and that money is used to buy off voters. The vice-presidential elections were nothing more than patron-clientelism at work. The candidates who were best placed to award contracts, the radio host presumed, would get the most votes, simple as that.
As things turned out, the person who received the most votes, Karl Blythe, was the least able to award contracts. Dr. Blythe was the one candidate who was not a member of Cabinet and not in charge of a ministry. He was the only backbencher in the lot and the least powerful of the four elected vice-presidents in Parliament. On the other hand, those closest to the Prime Minister in the hierarchy of power placed behind Dr. Blythe. Dr. Blythe himself explained that his success resulted from his diligent work among the delegates and their democratic power in the party.
The underlying proposition of the theory of patron-clientelism is that the real source of power lies, not in the people's vote but in the politician's resources. Yet, Dr. Blythe's competitors commanded more ministerial and probably private resources than he did. Portia Simpson Miller and Peter Phillips alternated as Acting Prime Minister whenever Mr. Patterson was away, and Paul Robertson was Minister of Development in the Office of the Prime Minister. They were all powerful ministers and close to the Prime Minister. Yet, they placed behind Dr. Blythe.
The Prime Minister himself, according to the patron-client model, was the maximum leader from whom all power flowed, and as the maximum patron he could determine the power structure below him. Yet, the one vice-president whom he did not reappoint to his Cabinet after the elections in 2002 was elected top of the vice-presidential line-up below him. Clearly, the patron-client model, so popular in the country, needs proper review. In fact, it is seriously flawed.
THE SIMPSON MILLER CASE
The election of Portia Simpson Miller provides another good test of this model. If the Phillips campaign had most support from the business class and most campaign money to spend, as we were told, then he should have won. That is what the model predicts. Since Dr. Davies is Minister of Finance he should have been able to use his great financial power and wide contacts in the financial sector to 'run with it' and win the elections.
Their campaign teams, brokers in other words, should have been able to promise or provide the money, jobs, goods, and material benefits through the private sector and government ministries under their direct and indirect control. After all, according to the model, Jamaicans are really very unsophisticated people. If you simply promise or provide them with benefits they will vote for you. The model is not very flattering towards politicians or people. Politicians are corrupt, politics is undemocratic, and voters are simple-minded.
The vote of the PNP delegates was clearly more sophisticated than this. They felt that Portia Simpson Miller will be more sensitive to women and children's needs; has always been sympathetic to the poor who trust her to do more for them; will best connect people to politics and address the feelings of distance and alienation that they feel; represents something different from the party establishment, its policy priorities and style; and stands the best chance of leading the PNP to a fifth term. It is non-material sentiments like these that were important, not the crude exchange of votes for benefits as the model claims.
DEMOCRACY AND PATRIARCHY
Patron-clientelism offers an explanation of how Jamaican politics works that is too one- dimensional. The concept belongs to a family of concepts in political anthropology that is associated with patriarchy, a society or system of government in which men hold power and women are largely excluded from it. Such a society or system of government is usually patrimonial, another term associated with patron-clientelism. In the patrimonial society or government, males inherit property from their fathers or male ancestors. Property is a form of power.
Supporters of the model say it applies to Jamaica. In patron-clientelism, the maximum leader is, by definition, a masculine figure, a political boss and strongman. He determines the line of political succession by his overall command of the distribution of patronage. Power follows a male line of descent. Neither Jamaican society nor the system of government is matriarchal or matrimonial. After all, power is not exercised through 'matron-clientelism'.
The patron is a father figure, not a mother figure. His status is rooted in feudal relations in pre-democratic Europe, or in non-democratic societies like those of Africa and Asia. According to the model, such societies are inherently undemocratic. The political anthropology of such societies sees the people and their norms as inherently tribal and corrupt. Patronage and tribalism in Jamaica can therefore be presumed to have their roots in our African heritage.
Westerners like this concept because it confirms to them that the people of patriarchal societies have to be guided by western principles of good governance if they are to become democratic and honest. Thus, the Washington Consensus and its leveraging instruments the World Bank and the IMF have assumed a tutelary role to promote guided democracy in Africanised and Asianised societies.
DEMOCRACY AND TRIBALISM
Tribalism is also a popular description of Jamaican politics. But we must be suspicious of it too. Tribes and tribalism are associated with African, not European societies. Tribalism is seen by the west as undemocratic, deeply partisan and violent. Since Jamaican politics is rooted in the African heritage, its conflicts must be tribal, which must therefore be bad, because it is African. In fact, this 'bad' African practice corrupts the 'good' Westminster system handed down to us by Britain. It is easy for us to accept this because we have been told for so long that what is African is, by association, bad.
To the extent that there is patronage in politics, and you will find it even in the developed democracies, it was not the overriding reason behind the vote for Portia Simpson Miller. Even those who campaigned for other candidates admit that she was always popular among the poor, that people feel a need for change in the government, and that it is probably time for new faces and new energy in the administration.
There is patronage in Jamaican politics and there are tribal-like political relations. However, these form parts of the Jamaican sub-culture. They are not the dominant norms in society and politics. The dominant norms more closely approximate democracy and pluralism. Sub-cultural practices do subvert the dominant norms. But we must be careful not to generalise and make them into dogma.
More importantly, we must be careful not to fall prey to the view that the Asian and African heritages are undemocratic and corrupt, and that western societies must tutor us in the ways of democracy and honesty. Patronage and tribalism in western societies are called by other names like interest group politics, such as when big business get contracts in return for money donated to political campaigns; or when political violence is called ethnic conflict.
In the western view, these problems are natural in their competitive and diverse societies. They are imperfections and dysfunctionalities that can be worked out. However, the failures of democracy elsewhere lie in the intrinsic character flaw of the races. Too many of us have accepted this for too long.
Robert Buddan is a lecturer in the department of Government at the University of the West Indies. You can send your comments to robert.buddan@uwimona.edu.jm.
