All eyes on UNC polls

Not only has the UNC announced a December 5 date for its internal elections, but the race for the post of political leader yesterday formally heated up. Political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar will be seeking a renewed mandate.

And Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Moonilal announced he will contest the same post.

Other candidates are also flirting with the possibility.

It is not the first time Persad- Bissessar and Moonilal have been on opposing teams. In 2010, when Moonilal contested the post of deputy political leader, he was on a slate of candidates assembled by then political leader Basdeo Panday. Moonilal was the sole person on that slate to win his post, in an election which saw a landslide result for Persad-Bissessar.

That was, however, five years ago and in the context of a national politics which had become disturbed by the tenure of PNM Prime Minister Patrick Manning.

Since then, Persad-Bissessar has lost every election held under her tenure. While each of these losses can be explained by natural cycles in political ratings, it is also the case that Persad-Bissessar’s administration faced multiple allegations of corruption. The UNC political leader, though, remained the most popular politician in the country – according to some polls – and the action she took in every instance when questions arose, eventually allowed her to boast of being accountable and responsive to the various concerns raised.

The UNC elections are to be welcomed as they represent the continuation of a tradition of democracy within a major national- level political party. Not only do these elections have implications for the Opposition, but they are also of significance to the national political landscape.

It is important for any system of governance to have a strong Opposition.

An Opposition keeps an Executive in check. Furthermore, any Opposition is effectively a government-in-waiting. The UNC, therefore, must do well to heed lessons from the experiences in 2006 which eventually saw a debilitating rift develop in its ranks. That rift saw the formation of the Congress of the People – a party which, almost a decade later, has been reduced to a lone MP in Parliament. The splintering of the UNC, though, arguably paved the way in 2007 for a PNM return to power, or at least it made that journey much easier. When an Opposition is weak, it is the Government, and no other entity, that gets a free pass and is afforded a chance to act in a manner that is unresponsive to the needs of a population.

Therefore the UNC – which is in a strong position in Parliament with 18 seats (stronger than the previous Opposition of 12) – must not conduct its process in a manner which does longterm damage to its ranks. Furthermore, after an acrimonious general election battle, the party must be cautious it does not replicate the bitterness of that campaign season into its own polls.

The allegations of abuse and demonisation raised by Moonilal yesterday are therefore worrying.

The UNC must remain democratic and allow goodwill and fair processes to prevail for the sake of the natio