GECOM: Institution versus structure

The contretemps over the operations of the electoral institution, the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) during the past year illustrate very vividly one of the major challenges posed in political science – the gap between institutions and practices. One of the constants of political life is that well-meaning individuals are always proposing new institutions to “solve” challenges in their polities. For instance, one recurring proposed institution in Guyana that has been proposed under several guised to address the ethnic polarisation is “shared governance”.
Before that, there was the call for “inclusive governance”, which in 2000, resulted in widespread constitutional changes altering the institution of Parliament, to give the Opposition greater input in monitoring the functioning of Government via four Sectoral Committees. The institution of the Judiciary was also changed to give the Opposition Leader a veto over the appointments of the substantive Chancellor and Chief Justice. Several electoral institutions were also altered, including the rules for selecting the Chairman of GECOM and the choosing of a representative to Parliament from a pure Proportional Representation to introducing some geographical representation.
But nearly two decades after those institutional changes, we have not moved any closer to achieving a modus vivendi – much less a rapprochement – between the political blocs. But is the solution simply introducing new institutions? Contrary to what most of us think, “institutions” are neither buildings nor organisations, but rather the totality of norms and rules that govern social structures. And failure in institutional innovations most often occurs at these lower levels. The institution of GECOM, for instance, are the rules that were established to govern its composition and functioning, but the fault we now see manifesting themselves lie not in its rules.
The “structures”, after all, consists of specific roles that individuals play in practice to ensure the value(s) around which the institution is organised are fulfilled. In the case of GECOM, the value is the running of free and fair elections to give life to the democratic value of equality symbolised in “one man, one vote”. But each role in a structure are guided by norms and it is vital they are observed since if they are transgressed the institution will be degutted; its legitimacy to actualise the value be eviscerated, and the institution falls. “Structure”, then is a more inclusive term than “institution”, since overt rules rarely describe the full range of incumbents’ activities.
The informal norms in that guide political institutions like GECOM are most heavily influenced by the extant political culture. In Guyana, this is the variable that will ultimately torpedo all the well-meaning attempts to introduce changes in political outcomes. Political culture consists of the attitudes, beliefs, values and orientations about politics in a given population at any given time. Along with political structures and institutions, they are typically shaped by a nation’s history and evolve out of the interaction, disagreements and conflicts among social forces, as they attempt to resolve their common problems.
Our political culture is dominated by the schism between the two major ethnic blocs that approach each other in size and the norms of each group structurally impel individuals to give support to either the People’s National Congress (African Guyanese) or the People’s Progressive Party (Indian Guyanese). Because democratic elections are not merely a technical undertaking, but a fundamental human right linked to a broad array of institutions centred on civil, economic and political rights via control of the state, the staffing of GECOM then becomes of paramount importance.
The rule for choosing the Chairman of GECOM, who has a casting vote on the Commission’s decisions, were explicitly changed to demand that there be consensus between the two blocks – represented by their parties – on the choice of this individual to defuse suspicions of partisan behaviour. For the Appellate Court to use sophistic casuistry to bypass this consensus has dealt a body blow to the legitimacy of GECOM.
The case involving GECOM’s hiring practices will soon be heard: wt will not be the death knell of the institution.