The practice is the doctrine

Sep 30, 2026 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

(Kaieteur News) – The call for renewal within the PPP is essentially a call for the removal of the oligarchy which now controls that party and dominates state policy. But to posit, in the same breadth that a political party exists principally to win elections is a different proposition altogether.

A political party is not a racing horse whose purpose is to cross the finishing line first. It is an organisation created to give political expression to ideas about the country: what the State is for, how power should be exercised, what obligations government owes to citizens, what kind of society is desirable and what limits should be placed upon those who govern. Winning is the mechanism by which those ideas acquire power. It is not, by itself, the purpose of the exercise.