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Politics in T&T

Apr 14, 2010 Editorial

To the surprise of almost everyone, not quite halfway into his five-year term, PM Patrick Manning of T&T has called for snap elections in the twin-island republic. With its similar demographic and voting patterns, political developments there might be of some relevance to us in Guyana where elections are constitutionally due next year.
There is a raft of suggestions as to why Manning might have made his move this early.
There was the no-confidence motion against his government brought by the new leader of the UNC, Kamala Persad-Bissessar, on the basis of inconsistencies in his statements about state assistance and his involvement to a church.
But though Manning might have engendered much dissatisfaction among even his party members, it is quite unlikely that he would not have survived such a vote when his party controlled 26 of the 41 seats in Parliament.
Then the economy was beginning to show fatigue in the absence of any significant new finds of petroleum or natural gas that are needed to maintain the expansion of spending initiated by Manning’s PNM regime.
This spending also, has generated what was widely conceded to be an unsustainable level of corruption in governmental programs – exemplified most glaringly by the current Urban Development Corporation of Trinidad and Tobago (UDeCOTT) boondoggle.
The crime rate has also remained astronomical – with murders, kidnappings and other serious crimes almost becoming the order of the day.
But while it is possible that Manning might want to escape from these negatives, they are not exactly the background that would assure him a return ticket to the PM’s seat – which he had assiduously been reworking into an Executive presidency. What then? The most likely reason for the snap election’s call is Manning’s hope that in the very short time frame he is giving the opposition, they will not be in a position to get their act together to force him out.
The fact of the matter is that in the opposition, which is ethnically riven much as we are in Guyana, is split down the middle between the UNC and the COP. In the November 2007 elections, even though COP secured almost 150,000 votes, they did not earn a single seat to Parliament because of the constituency system of T&T. They actually enabled the PNM to win the elections even though the combined opposition’s votes were higher than the PNM’s.
With the removal of Basdeo Panday from the leadership of the UNC by Kamla Persad-Bissessar, a new dynamic has entered T&T politics. After the elections, in view of the widespread disapproval of Manning by even PNM supporters (a SARA poll by Prof Selwyn Ryan of December 2009 found an 80% dissatisfaction of his management of the country’s affairs) it was widely accepted that he would be vulnerable to a combined opposition. But the obduracy of Panday in refusing to share the leadership of the opposition ensured that the PNM could ride out the storms of unrest in the country.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar is seen as a different kettle of fish. If permitted time, Manning understands that she would be willing to forge a union with UNC and COP to unseat the PNM even if it meant sharing some of the trappings of leadership. Manning could not allow this to happen and so Persad-Bissessar and Deokarran, leader of COP, have possibly only a week to work out an arrangement that would be acceptable to their ambitious leadership cores. Some of these ambitions will have to be deferred: there are only so many positions, after all to be shared.
Manning would also be counting on the dissidents within the UNC who have gathered around Panday to throw some spanners into the opposition unity talks. One hopeful sign, perhaps, is that Panday has not submitted his name to be considered for representing his old constituency. Maybe the times, as the balladeer sung, are a changin’. The upcoming election will be the fifth in the last decade for T&T. This is a sign that the political system is ailing. Will the upcoming changes go to the causes rather than the symptoms of T&T’s political illness?

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