Gordon Brown, Ranil and leadership stakes

Ravi Perera

The barely concealed rebellion against Gordon Brown, the recently appointed Prime Minister of Great Britain, is illustrative of the pressures and tensions of leadership in modern democracies.

For ten unbroken years Chancellor of the Exchequer under the charismatic Tony Blair, in 2007 Brown became the leader of the Labour Party and soon after the Prime Minister when Blair decided that he would not pursue a fourth term.

Gordon Brown has been a member of the British Parliament since 1983. Although insisting that the world calls him Brown, he in fact is entitled to the sought after prefix “Dr” carrying a PhD in history from the University of Edinburgh. There is nothing wrong with his credentials for the top spot except for the timing of the ascent.

It is always a challenge when one has to follow an act like Blair’s who made the sun shine on all things British, their Cricket team excluded.

According to some polls such is the state of the Conservative opposition it is yet possible that with a bit of luck Gordon Brown could lead the faithful Labour Party war machine to another victory. But it appears that for a large segment of the Party rank and file even the dazzling prospect of a fourth straight election victory is not good enough to put up with the leadership provided by Brown.

Gordon Brown	Ranil Wickremesinghe	Tony Blair

Perceived as a distant dour personality by many, Brown has few friends in the party and even fewer admirers. For this the critics point to the rising oil prices, the credit crunch, rising inflation and the falling value of the British Pound. The recent defeat of the Party at the Glasgow East by-election, considered a safe Labour seat, compounds his woes.

If we were to compare this scenario to the much-troubled United National Party of Sri Lanka, Ranil Wickremesinghe its perennially unsuccessful leader, if not removed should have resigned from party leadership years ago.

If a political party is treated as a public institution its leadership is bound by ethical rules and more importantly a certain good sense and decency.

On the other hand if it is taken as a private company its failures do not matter and its owner is free to pursue his ambitions as long as he wishes. Despite repeated defeats the way Ranil has held on to the leadership of the party will not find a parallel anywhere else in the modern world.

In a way such a situation is perhaps inevitable in a society such as ours. Despite the plethora of contemporary symbols all around us like sealed roads, airplanes, newspapers, electricity, computers, regular elections and so on, our social attitudes seem to remain feudal and somewhat obscure if not dark.

It is symptomatic of this society that many prominent institutions are preoccupied with demanding deference from the outside world while objectively doing little to earn it. Deference in their collective institutional minds amounts to abject physical acts of supplication by others.

We had a President who routinely kept visitors waiting for some thing like seven to ten hours. And these were busy senior public officers and public figures with busy schedules. We have also seen holders of public office too old and feeble to even read a report but nevertheless clinging to office on the basis of some doubtful claim. Despite repeated abuse and degradation our society is inclined to kneel before their leaders.

Even in very personal matters they confide in their leaders in a manner more suitable for addressing the deities.

A recent newspaper report had the following conversation between a leader and a senior party man. The senior partyman running up to his car addresses the leader thus “Sir, Sir My wife is not well and I have to take her to Australia”.

The leader “ Good, take her and when she is OK bring her back”. We as a race appear to be extremely adapt at inventing various ways of showing our absolute and abject devotion to those in power.

The arguments of the defenders of Wickremesinghe sound more like devotional hymns than modern day political views. According to them no one else, including themselves, is good enough for the leadership of the Party.

It is incredible that they indulge in this kind of self-debasement and then come forward to hold ministerial positions.

While Ranil seems to have convinced his followers that they are not suitable for higher leadership, others outside continue to defeat the UNP at elections and win office, Ranil’s opinion notwithstanding.

It is a truism that our political parties are not open transparent organisations. Very few of them have internal democratic processes. Those think tanks who find so many undesirable features in our national Constitution for example, must ponder whether politicians who come from fundamentally undemocratic party systems even understand the spirit of democracy.

Political parties receive substantial funding from well wishers. These are never accounted for. As happens in this kind of society a good amount of it is what is termed “black” money which even the donor would not want to claim. But then what happens to this money?

The combination of undemocratic systems, unaccounted for funding and other perks like regular foreign travel are in deed an irresistible temptation for people such as these.

While Wickremesinghe is a good example of the prevalent office-hogging mentality here certainly he is not the only culprit. As long as the general society accepts this kind of conduct the abuser is only exploiting a ready situation.

The exaggerated respect we are culturally trained to show holders of office seems to be rebounding on us. If democracy is to flourish our individual sense of self worth and dignity must become paramount. Until then we can only read about things like the spirit of the British Labour Party, the courage of Barrack Obamas and the selflessness of Al Gores but never experience such leadership locally.

When Hitler was crashing through Western Europe there was a revolt in the British Parliament against the pacifist Chamberlain. On that occasion Conservative Parliamentarian Leo Amery, until then Chamberlain’s staunch supporter and family friend, realising the deadly threat facing the country threw himself regretfully in to the campaign to remove the Prime Minister whose judgment had been proved absolutely faulty.

One of those grim days When Hitler seemed unstoppable Amery rose in Parliament to speak with numbing gravity “We are fighting today for our life, for our liberty, for our all. We cannot go on being led as we are. I have quoted (earlier) certain words of Oliver Cromwell. I will quote certain other words. I do it with great reluctance, because I am speaking of those who are old friends and associates of mine. But they are words which I think are applicable to the present situation.

This is what Cromwell said to the Long Parliament when he thought it was no longer fit to conduct the affairs of the nation: You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go.”

And of course Chamberlain had to resign paving the way for Churchill, at the time just a private member representing Epping, to write one of the bravest chapters of the English history.