There is no indication the article's writer was theorising the existence of a Shadowy Cabal...

No, but that assumption was there in some of the comments, where the implication was that the Administrators actually control the content of the Awards, not just the counting of them.

If anything the article seems to be supportive of Secret Cabals, suggesting that juried awards (the Clarkes etc.) select better quality works...

Unless they don't pick works the writer likes, in which case they are Terribly Flawed.

Actually, I have no objection to juried awards either. What annoys me is people saying, in effect, "You should change your prestigious award that you've spent decades developing into something that picks my favored works, so that I can reap the benefit of your accumulated goodwill instead of my going out and working to develop some other award."