January 30, 2000
By Dennis Solomon
P olitics in the English-speaking Caribbean has always been characterised by two things: authoritarianism in both rulers and ruled, and continual reversion to primal loyalties: tribalism without even a valid council of elders.
The major reason for this continuation of colonial rule is the way we have crafted our constitutions to put power where power already exists, to the total exclusion of popular representation in any but the crudest and most transient form: general elections.
In a democracy, a government becomes a government when it has a majority. In Trinidad and Tobago, we elect a government first and then give it a majority. I refer, of course, to the majority in the Senate and the power to fire any member of that majority who thinks he or she is there to represent anything other than will of the Supreme Leader.
Although the lower house is fully elected, our political culture ensures that the same condition applies there: slavish adherence to the party line is the only path to election or re-election. The effect, indeed the purpose, of these arrangements is to spare the Government the nuisance of having to justify itself more than once every five years, or justify its legislative proposals at all.
At the same time, however, we had to pretend to be part of something called the Westminster tradition. Which meant that we had to invest executive power nominally in a King, under the title of President of the Republic, but in reality confine that power to the right to advise "and if necessary, warn".
So we had, instead of a Republic, a dual monarchy: a constitutional monarch in the guise of a President and an absolute monarch in the shape of a Prime Minister.
The one consolation was that neither was hereditary. Which meant that there could be a succession roughly once every five years (though in reality the first occurred only after 24, a long enough reign for any dynasty).
So as long as the absolute monarch was solidly enough on his throne (i.e. had at least one more courtier than the pretender had) he was untouchable (even if he said he was a Brahmin). But as soon as that majority vanished, a kingmaker was needed in the shape of whoever would provide the desperately needed extra follower.
The kingmaker then had to be rewarded (as well as kept out of the way), and what better reward than a throne of his own?
Especially when the kingmaker had himself been king for a brief spell, and was also the absentee ruler of a mini-state within the State.
So the kingmaker became the constitutional monarch. The trouble was, he remembered having been a kingmaker when the king he made had forgotten it.
A gentle reminder became necessary. He couldn't take back the two seats he had given, because their value had declined through treachery in both kingdoms (loyalty is fragile when it is to a man and not a principle). So he bided his time, and in due course the opportunity came to show that there was life in the old dog yet.
This little parable is by way of showing that the crisis we are at present facing was on the cards from the beginning. Any Constitution that afforded the opportunities for executive irresponsibility, under the guise of parliamentary supremacy and "collective responsibility", that ours does was bound to crack once the two monarchs it created found themselves with equal political power and an issue on which they could slug it out under the guise of principle: on the one hand, the integrity of the constitution; on the other, the integrity of the State.
This is not to say that either principle is false: neither is. Or that either protagonist is insincere: both are. Or neither is. Take your pick.
Sincerity doesn't come into it. In politics, sincerity comes out of the barrel of a gun. One can concede sincerity to "Abu Bakr" without conceding for a single moment the advisability of jailing him for life.
Another feature of post-Colonial politics is the shortness of popular memory. This is another reason for my little parable. Robinson should not be condemned for his stand against the Constitution (for that is what it is), but neither should he be admired for standing up against Panday's attempts to destabilise the State. The authoritarianism that motivates Panday goes far beyond the question of the autonomy of Tobago, and Robinson shares it.
The kind of tin god that Eric Williams was in Trinidad, and all his successors (including Robinson) aspired to be, Robinson was, simultaneously, in Tobago. Even now both the NAR and the PEP claim to be his political offspring.
Morgan Job, as an NAR candidate, was; his opponent, Winford James, attempted to take the royal warrant from him by implying that Robinson had personally asked him to stand for election.
Deborah Moore-Miggins, despite her fall-out with Robinson over the THA Bill, invoked him in her support for James, who she said had Robinson's elegant "mannerisms" (sic). When Pamela Nicholson resigned over Job's selection she said he "would not co-operate and act responsibly", by which she meant that he would not take orders from Hochoy Charles as both she and Hochoy Charles had taken orders from Robinson.
If it were principle and not power that was at stake in the present crisis, Panday would never be able to find two replacements in the NAR for the Senators he is trying to fire. No NAR member would accept.
Furthermore, the "heads of agreement" that sealed the coalition were between the UNC and the NAR, not between the UNC and Tobago. The principle of protection for Tobago within the State would therefore suggest that there should be Senate seats for the Tobago Opposition as well as the Tobago monarchy (sorry, government).
Two things that must be discarded if this crisis is to lead anywhere are the automatic Government majority in the Senate and the idea that a president can save us from the irresponsibility of a Prime Minister. We must become a Republic in fact as well as in name.
It is true that there are viable republics, mostly in Europe, with "ceremonial" presidents. They are ex-monarchies, but not ex-colonies. On this side of the Atlantic, the older republics are former colonies. Trinidad and Tobago has not, however followed their lead.
We are a republic only in the sense that the Queen of England is not Head of State. In no respect do we fulfil the major condition that defines a republic: a republican spirit of self-confidence and realistic optimism.
The major expression of that spirit in the Western Hemisphere is the merging of the Head of State and Head of Government in one person, elected by the people, and held in check by an independent legislature and judiciary.
An acceptance of politics rather than a flight from it.