Changing face of T&T Politics
THE SENSATIONAL defeat last Sunday of Basdeo Panday as political leader of Trinidad and Tobago’s major opposition United National Congress (UNC) has been generating a mix of hopes and speculations about the real possibility for changing the culture for changing the culture of party politics in that twin-island state.

Even probably carrying the potential of influencing political patterns, including voting tradition, in multicultural societies beyond Trinidad and Tobago in CARICOM.

The most charismatic of post-republic Trinidadian politicians, the former trade union leader, Prime Minister for seven years, founder-leader of the UNC (successor to the United Labour Front) for 20 years, has reacted very badly to his defeat at age 77.

Screaming “sabotage,” for instance, over boxes of UNC membership cards discovered at party headquarters after the results were declared — when, from all credible sources, his overwhelming defeat was based on a democratic voting procedure.

Worse, defeat by a woman — Kamla Persad-Bissessar, a former Attorney General in his cabinet who triumphed, the first time around, where all male challengers had previously failed, to dislodge from the leadership helm the ‘comrade’ they had for years revered as the ‘Silver Fox’ for his assumed political astuteness.

As this was being written, backroom negotiations were taking place for Persad-Bissessar to now replace Panday as parliamentary Opposition Leader as well.

This would require her securing the support of at least seven of the UNC’s 15 parliamentarians in the 41-member House in which Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s governing People’s National Movement controls 26 seats. The same arithmetic applies if Panday hopes to retain the post of Opposition.

There were signals of the likelihood of Panday relinquishing the post to avoid even wider divisions and much more bitterness. The hour of decision on the UNC’s future and new kind of politics in Trinidad and Tobago may well have arrived a week ago today.

I cannot recall an example in the modern political history of the Caribbean region where, other than in Trinidad and Tobago, a major parliamentary party conducts its internal election of office bearers, including the leader, in the manner of a national election, with all the customary mix of ‘bad-mouthing’, divisiveness, and personal bitterness.

And, as a consequence of that democratic process of direct membership voting (as distinct by delegates), the founder-leader of the party suffered a humiliating defeat.

This unique development, one that introduces a new concept in internal party democracy, and mocks ‘maximum leadership’ politics, was stunningly dramatized last Sunday when Panday suffered his humiliating defeat by Persad-Bissessar, the woman he had embraced and nurtured politically for many years.

Bitter conflicts resulting from leadership challenges are known to many political parties in our region and the world over. They are certainly familiar to governing and opposition parties in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, St. Lucia and Grenada.

However, what occurred at the UNC election was more than a political earthquake for that party. It would have telegraphed a clear message also to Prime Minister Manning’s PNM that the ‘ole politics is in jeopardy and new ways for achieving or retaining State power must be found — the sooner the better.

The rise of Persad-Bissessar to the UNC’s leadership also widens the window of opportunity for more meaningful integrated involvement of women in the politics of that major plural society where race and cultural differences have often been exploited by both opposition and ruling parties to secure and sustain power.

Of course, in Jamaica, the populist ‘Sister P’ (Portia Simpson-Miller) had years earlier carved her name in history by defeating her male challengers to succeed the retired PJ Patterson for leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP). The situation was quite different in the UNC’s leadership contest.

The overall results of the new leadership structure of the UNC, with Persad-Bissessar and the flamboyant Jack Warner, of regional/international football fame, as leader and chairman, respectively, could only have resulted by the twin factors of a significant departure from traditional Hindu-based norms by that party’s voting women members, plus the shocking misreading of the situation faced by Panday, the once lionized ‘Silver Fox’.

Afro-Trinidadian women, who, by and large, have acquired a more encouraging profile in political activism on issues of women’s rights and gender equality, would undoubtedly welcome the promise of change that has resulted from Persad-Bissessar’s leadership victory and declaration: “This is a small step for the UNC, but a giant step for the nation…”

It could be “a giant step” indeed if those from both the UNC and PNM yet to overcome their imprisonment from race-oriented and class-based politics, carefully analyse and act on the multi-messages resulting from the outcome of the UNC internal elections.

While a bitter Panday continued to lampoon his opponents in the UNC, Prime Minister Manning had already started to drop open hints in the media about possible ‘snap election’.

At the time of writing, she seemed short of two, but with a strong likelihood of achieving that goal as her parliamentary colleagues grapple with the reality of the extent of her virtual 12-1 defeat of Panday, and what the leadership change could mean for the UNC’s return to power.

For his part, Manning is by no means sitting on his hands, and has alerted his party’s central committee to the possibility of a “snap election” later in the year. Local government election is expected, but a nati
onal election is not due before 2012.

The PNM leader would be anxious not to allow the UNC to settle down under the leadership of Persad-Bissessar, knowing of the alignments and re-alignments that could occur with Winston Dookeran’s Congress of People (COP) and the evident disaffection within the traditional base of his own party.

After all, at the 2007 general election, the combined valid votes for the UNC and COP totaled 52.37 per cent, compared to the PNM’s approximately 46 per cent.

The COP, however, did not get a single seat for its own 148,000 portion of total votes cast, by virtue of the first-past-the post electoral system.