The rise and fall

BASDEO PANDAY, whose conviction on fraud charges last Monday ended his tenure as this country’s longest serving Leader of the Opposition, is no stranger to turmoil.

The leadership crisis within the United National Congress (UNC), which has exposed deep divisions within the ranks of that party, is just the latest crisis over which the 72-year-old British-trained attorney has presided in more than three decades of active involvement in Trinidad and Tobago politics.

From the United Labour Front (ULF), a party with a broad trade union base which was his launching pad into the House of Representatives in the 1970s, to his relatively short involvement in the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), then his reign at the helm of the UNC, Panday has been a prominent figure in most of this country’s political controversies.

Panday has been part of two political entities which have inflicted electoral defeats on the People’s National Movement (PNM). However, he has also been involved in the disintegration of several alliances and has figured in the building up and breaking down of many political careers.

Given his dominance on the local political scene for more than 30 years, it is surprising that Panday’s first venture into politics ended in defeat. The year was 1966 when the young London-educated lawyer and aspiring trade unionist was a losing candidate for the Workers and Farmers Party (WFP) in the elections of that year. A full decade passed before he got another chance to face the polls — in 1976 he finally achieved electoral success as the Couva North candidate for the ULF, earning his place in the House of Representatives.

In the years since then, Panday has never been out of TT’s political spotlight in a career that has been frequently overshadowed by controversy.

Born in the cane-farming community of St Julien Village, Princes Town, on May 25, 1933, Panday gained entry into politics via the labour movement. In 1973, taking advantage of the leadership vacuum in the Trinidad Islandwide Cane Farmers’ Association (TICFA) following the death of Bhadase Sagan Maharaj, he took over the leadership of that trade union.

Once firmly entrenched in TICFA, Panday turned his attention to the politics of the day. The country’s main opposition party, the Democratic Labour Party (DLP), was in shambles. Spotting an opportunity to take on the ruling PNM in the elections of 1976, Panday joined forces with fellow union leaders George Weekes, Joe Young and Raffique Shah to form the ULF in 1975.

Shah, now a newspaper columnist, recently wrote that the ULF was “almost stillborn” because “Panday showed that he must have his way or he would take his marbles and go home.” He contended that Panday never truly supported the concept of the ULF as a party that would introduce a new political culture in TT and his real intent was to replace the DLP “as the party that controlled the Indian constituency.”

In 1976, the ULF won ten seats in the House of Representatives, enough to take over as the official opposition. However, within months, internal problems surfaced. It took just a year for Panday to fall out with his former political colleagues. In August 1977, the ULF’s central committee made an attempt to remove Panday as opposition leader and a member of the party’s executive.

Shah and five other ULF MPs had Panday’s appointment as opposition leader revoked and Shah took over the position. However, by the following year, Winston Nanan, an Opposition MP who had initially supported Shah, defected to the Panday faction of the party. Shah resigned and Panday was once again appointed Leader of the Opposition.

A few years later, Panday was again playing a key role in the forging of a new political entity. This time he joined forces with Karl Hudson-Phillips of the Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR) and ANR Robinson of the Democratic Action Congress (DAC) to form the NAR. Robinson was named political leader of the new party.

In 1988, the NAR scored a landslide 33-3 victory over the PNM, breaking the latter party’s three-decade hold on power. Panday became a senior Cabinet member in the Robinson administration, taking the portfolio of Minister of External Affairs and International Trade.

Within two years, the Robinson-Panday political alliance fell apart. In 1988, along with colleagues Kelvin Ramnath, Trevor Sudama and John Humphrey, Panday was expelled from the NAR.

He quickly moved on to a new political venture, the Club for Love, Unity and Brotherhood (CLUB ’88), the forerunner to the UNC. The new party was quickly on an election footing and in preparation for the fight against his former NAR colleagues, Panday introduced some new faces on the political scene, among them Hulsie Bhaggan, a former Mastana Bahar Queen turned community activist. Panday put Bhaggan to fight the Chaguanas seat and she easily defeated the incumbent, Winston Dookeran.

However, even with the UNC firmly entrenched as the official opposition to the ruling PNM, now back in government with Patrick Manning as Prime Minister, Panday was never far from controversy.

Bhaggan, once his political protege, was not toeing the party line and Panday publicly labelled her a “loose cannon.” Not too long after that, Bhaggan broke ranks with her UNC colleagues to support an amendment to the Corporal Punishment Act.

She was quickly sidelined by the party, replaced on the Opposition benches by Indera Sagewan, another young female Panday protege.

Also sidelined during that political term was Couva South — his seat in a prime UNC stronghold was handed to Panday’s newest political partner, high-profile attorney at law and human rights campaigner, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj.

By 1995, Panday appeared to have achieved the pinnacle of political success when the elections of that year ended with a result of 17 seats for the PNM, 17 seats for the UNC and two seats for the NAR in Tobago. Panday quickly mended fences with NAR leader Robinson and the two entered into an agreement for a coalition government.

For a while, the arrangement seemed to work. Robinson took the position of Minister Extraordinaire in the UNC-NAR Cabinet and Panday became the country’s first Hindu Prime Minister. In 1997, when the term of President Noor Hassanali expired, Robinson was elevated to that position.

However, even as Prime Minister, Panday never managed to avoid controversy. His term was overshadowed by his frequent run-ins with the media and allegations of corruption over the construction of a new $1.6 billion terminal building at Piarco International Airport. An investigation by Canadian Robert Lindquist indicated that the tendering system for the project was corrupt, money had been diverted into unauthorised accounts and public funds were abused.

Panday kept the Lindquist report secret for one year and challenged critics to “produce the evidence of corruption.”

The UNC won the 2000 election, securing 19 seats and a clear majority in Parliament. However, the thrill of victory was short lived. Internal party elections the following year revealed deep divisions within the party, with Panday and his former close confidante, Ramesh Maharaj, fielding rival slates.

Maharaj’s team won 21 of the 24 executive positions, with Maharaj himself winning an intense three-way race to become the UNC’s deputy political leader.

The Panday-Maharaj relationship deteriorated further when Panday refused to recommend his deputy leader to act as Prime Minister during his absence.

Within months a full-fledged controversy was raging over the Piarco Airport project. Maharaj and two other members of the Cabinet — Ralph Maraj and Trevor Sudama — began pressing for the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into alleged corruption on the project.

Panday fired Maharaj, then Sudama and Maraj resigned, fuelling a crisis that sent the country back to the polls within a year.

The 18-18 deadlock that resulted ended with President Arthur NR Robinson calling on PNM political leader Patrick Manning to form the government.

Panday and the UNC returned to the Opposition benches and there they stayed, even after elections held on October 7, when they lost to the PNM by a 16-20 margin.

Their political tailspin continued after that. In April 2005, Pointe-a-Pierre MP Gillian Lucky and San Juan MP Fuad Khan declared themselves independent UNC members and moved to the Opposition back benches.

Weeks later, on May 31, 2005, Panday, his wife Oma, former UNC MP Carlos John and party financier Ish Galbaransingh were arrested for bribery. In addition, Panday was charged for failing to declare a London bank account to the Integrity Commission.

His legal problems were equalled only by the political upheavals within the UNC, including the leadership struggle with the party’s current political leader, Winston Dookeran. This latest crisis has added to the size of the Opposition back bench — St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming, former Chief Whip Ganga Singh and Dookeran had joined Lucky and Khan there.

The surprise appointment of Kamla Persad-Bissessar to replace Panday as Opposition Leader has only added to the raging UNC bacchanal.

And the disintegration continues.