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Wrong election
December 6, 2000
By Denis Solomon
WHEN the President of the Republic baulked at revoking the appointment of two Tobago Senators, and appointing two UNC nominees to replace them, there was much talk of a Constitutional crisis. Likewise when the Attorney General and the Chief Justice were at each other’s throats. But the fact is that a Constitutional crisis had been ripening since the first moment of our Independence. Over the years it has manifested itself in various ways.
It manifested itself with the no-vote campaign of 1971 and the consequent PNM monopoly of Parliamentary seats. It surfaced again with the appointment of a Speaker from outside Parliament, and once more when the UNC and the PNM each got 17 seats in 1995. It raised its head when a President of the Republic was elected for the first time other than by unanimity. The perennial quarrel between the Ministry of Local Government and the Regional Corporations, particularly those of different political coloration from the central government, was sharpened by the coming to office of the first “Indian” government, by URP brigandage and by the involvement of the Jamaat al Muslimeen. That was a Constitutional crisis. But it was seen by the population not as a structural problem but as just another example of our fundamental corruption.
Relations between Trinidad and Tobago have always been strained, and the 17-17 split put the bit firmly between Hochoy Charles’ teeth, with the result that he is now operating like the Prime Minister of Tobago. Everyone agrees that the Constitutional relationship between the two islands (the THA Act) needs review; nobody says how.
As far as the turf war between the executive and the judiciary is concerned, some people may be under the impression that the Mackay report solved something. It solved nothing.
The Panday-Robinson “two man rat” controversy, or as I called it at the time, the war between the absolute monarch and the constitutional monarch, was a manifestation of the crisis so direct that even those innocent of Constitutional awareness (ninety-nine point nine nine per cent of the population, and one hundred per cent of political scientists) knew there was something fundamentally wrong, and not just a storm in a teacup.
The considerable alarm aroused in the minds of the population by this dispute between the two arms of the executive seems to have subsided, as all worries subside in the minds of a population whose major preoccupations are feting and praying. But anyone who thinks it will not happen again is seriously deceiving himself. Even if not everyone put the label of “Constitutional” on them, these issues were recognised at the time to be of fundamental importance. And yet they have played no part whatsoever in the election campaign.
Instead of providing an occasion to focus on basic questions of governance, the campaign has consisted mainly of irresponsible pie-in-the-sky promises (dollar-for-dollar subsidies for all students anywhere!) and by robust and unrelenting reciprocal abuse. The UNC’s “manifesto” (the inverted commas are justified) is heavily weighted with accounts of what the PNM didn’t do and what the UNC supposedly did do, as opposed to what it will do if elected. Constitutional issues find no place in its pages, not even in the section on Tobago.
Mr. Panday’s constitutional concerns are limited to asking the people to give him enough seats to enable him to override the Constitution. (He has already in fact overridden it to a considerable degree, by ignoring or circumventing tendering procedures and the rules of the Public Service and Judicial and Legal Service Commissions. But that is another story).
Mr. Manning, for his part, has made only one constitutional statement. He has promised more of the same, by stating that “within seconds” of being re-elected he will take the necessary steps to make sure that anyone who leaves his party will be thrown out of Parliament.
Attempts to use the Constitution to guarantee political parties against internal dissension began when Eric Williams got the Crossing the Floor Act through Parliament. Now, Mr. Manning is determined to make the Act effective. There are to be no more Hector McLeans, Hulsie Bhaggans, Lasses or Griffiths (or Basdeo Pandays! Was he fired from the NAR or did he fire the NAR?). Of course, not all of these concern Mr. Manning to the same extent. But those that do not worry Manning worry Panday. So we can be sure they will cooperate in this if in nothing else.
It is typical of the UNC that the Constitution should mean nothing to them (and Tobago less than nothing), and typical of the PNM that their only concern should be to reinforce what is bad in it. The desire for legislative restriction on crossing the floor is a declaration of contempt for citizens, for it implicitly binds them to voting for a party instead of for an individual who may or may not concur exactly with the philosophy of his party. It deprives the constituents of the floor-crossing MP of the right to choose whether they want him to continue to represent them despite his rupture with the party, or to demand his resignation. Paradoxically, if the MP concerned has integrity, it encourages rupture rather than compromise, because it encourages intransigence in the party leadership. It degrades the concept of Parliament by erecting parties above Parliament as the instruments of representation of the people.
The vision that both UNC and PNM boast of having for the country is tunnel vision. Panday’s only dream is of twenty-four seats; Manning’s is of absolute control of Parliament, with no nonsense like politics to worry about between elections.
So we press ahead into the new millennium trailing a host of unsolved problems of governance. They will all recur. Parliament will never again be able to elect a Speaker from within its own ranks. There will be favouritism and neglect in local government administration. Tobago will continue to be discontented at its role in dividing the national pie and its share of it. At some time or another an Attorney General and a Chief Justice will again be at loggerheads, with no superior forum for resolution of their disputes. Sooner or later a President of the Republic will have misgivings about signing a bill or making an appointment.
Who wins the election is of little importance as long as what is won is control of a system that makes the development and implementation of serious policy almost impossible. The next election that will make a real difference in Trinidad and Tobago will not be on December 11, 2000. It will be the election that sends delegates to a constituent assembly to craft a polity more rational and fruitful than the ill-designed structure that now sustains our political life.
Copyright © Denis Solomon
