The question I want to consider here is what can be done to improve internal democracy in the political parties in Guyana? As Jeron Mimpen claimed in the opening sentence of his paper (“Intra-party Democracy and its Discontents” – 2011), “The debate on the benefits of internal party democratization is inconclusive. Both sides of the debate seem to provide valid arguments, but neither are totally convincing”. However, the tradition has been for all our political parties to have a highly formalised and centralised structure consisting of groups, districts, regions, national secretariats, etc. These are usually combined with meetings and conferences at the various levels, in which the membership is expected to participate in policy making, elections of party officials, propaganda exercises, etc. Of course, the process is very much controlled and directed by the parties’ central secretariats, although they would have us believe that the parties are policy directed democratic institutions,
