Still Maximum Prime Ministership?
Constitution or no constitution, one of the things we must absolutely resist in the governance of our nation is dictatorial prime ministership. In his third turn at the helm, PM Manning is already showing signs of (an unpalatable and indigestible) maximum leadership, when I for one would have thought this stage of our political evolution seriously discourages it. His dictatorship, not simply in the mistreatment of Fitzgerald Hinds and Eudine Job-Davis, but in the entire process of appointment of Cabinet and junior ministers, is simply indefensible and unacceptable. And he must be vigorously resisted.
Look again at how he appointed his administration. First, he arranged matters so that he could be sworn in as prime minister all by himself, starring by himself as the big baas and sahib; no attorney general just yet to satisfy the minimum requirements of a government, even though he had had an attorney general in the last nine months in the person of Glenda Morean, who was still available, and whom he would appoint the next day. Then, aloof from a government yet to be formed, he 'sleeps' on the appointment process and next day he deigns to appoint Mrs. Morean and other ministers, in particular, selecting a number of senators as Cabinet ministers before appointing elected MPs. Then the third day he completes the list of ministers. In the process, he manages to offend a lot of people, including Hinds, whom he wanted to make an underling to the undistinguished Chin Lee, and Job-Davis, whom he wanted to demote from the position of Cabinet minister to that of junior minister.
In the misguided approach, he abandoned the participatory approach that has been gaining good ground in the party as well as in the wider national community. We are at a stage of our evolution as a country where there is widespread evidence and appreciation of the deficiencies, vexations, and evils of maximum leadership, where the people in their various interest groups are clamouring for participation in the executive decision-making process, and Manning chooses to evoke his constitutional right to select ministers by his own discretions and to exercise the discretion to consult with a few privileged advisers.
When potential and actual ministers are questioned about the appointment process, it is customary to hear the platitudinous deference that the prime minister has the prerogative and the call, as if the constitutional process rules out the sensible and up-to-date political process of general consultation with your parliamentary colleagues. One well appreciates that, procedurally, it is far easier to appoint from on high and rule, but organisationally and democratically, it is crystal clear that that procedure is badly flawed in a context where parliamentary elections are democratic. The constitutional provision is as anomalous as the state of affairs where a single MP, elected by only one of 36 constituencies, is empowered to dictate, by his own necessarily flawed and fallible discretions, who should be ministers and who shouldn't be.
We have had dictators for all of our history, beginning with the colonial slavemasters and governors. When our premiers and prime ministers came along, they adopted the mantle and style of the colonial governors on the authority of a constitution made in Britain and on the easy acquiescence of peoples long dehumanised by slavery and strict indentureship. Some men may be dictators 'by nature', but it is socio-political conditions and governance frameworks that really make them dictators. Gomes, Williams, Chambers, Robinson, Manning (in his first regime), and Panday were all dictators, but only because the constitution (and the norms and traditions that developed from it) made them so. There is an urgent need to change those norms and traditions!
It should not have been necessary to argue the point in this period of our history when information and formal education (and therefore popular enlightenment) are widespread, but personal power, especially in the domain of government, can be as addictive as cocaine, and the related sycophancy is easily bought and sustained. In Manning's case, the power is even more dangerous since it seems to be bolstered by the seduction that God has (re)anointed him to turn back the country from the Pandayan excesses.
That kind of power is both frightening and unhelpful to independent and knowledgeable minds that understand the value of both difference of insight and cooperation to the success of social institutions such as government and party. To these minds, it is frankly anathema, especially in this day and age where the long and heavy exploitable blanket of ignorance on societies on which politicians thrive and like to thrive is being irrevocably and rapidly thrown off.
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