Dookeran can have last laugh

Today, Dookeran only has one viable option, that of bidding farewell to the UNC and joining hands with a “third party”. Viewing the situation, objectively, that party will more than likely be the Democratic National Assembly (DNA) which will in turn need the support on the ground of three other parties, the Democratic Party of Trinidad and Tobago (DPTT), the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and the Movement for National Development (MND). Already, Dookeran’s Office and authority as Political Leader of the UNC have not simply been challenged, but eroded. Should Dookeran persist in holding on to what is, in saddened reality, a simulacrum of what the Office of Political Leader of his party once was when Basdeo Panday held it, he risks a lessening of the image he had when he first linked up with the UNC in the 1990s.

Basdeo Panday, who “gave” up the post of UNC Political Leader to Dookeran and settled for that of Chairman of the Party, still, if reports are correct, insists on wielding the same considerable power he had before demitting Office of Political Leader. It is as though Panday is saying in paraphrase of what a French monarch declared more than two centuries ago: “I am the Party and the Party is me.”

Nonetheless, under the Westminster system which Trinidad and Tobago adopted, or had foisted upon it, political parties whether in Government or Opposition are expected to conform to accepted rules in the selection and election of their Executive and otherwise officer structure. This, in addition to the selection of individuals to fight for seats in the House of Representatives and/or in Local Government Councils, whether City Councils, Borough Councils or in general, Regional Corporations. In turn, it is assumed that the respective political parties, and here I am speaking, generally, will select, through the democratic process, each a Political Leader who, hopefully, would one day emerge as Prime Minister.

Each party must, or rather should have a Constitution and an imperative should be that all in the party, regardless of Office, should be subordinate to that of the party’s constitution and not the constitution and/or party subordinate to any individual.

What is ironic is that although the Constitution of Trinidad and Tobago has legislated safeguards which are there to impose restrictions on Governments in power, nevertheless, no safeguards appear to be in place under which members of political parties can with reason be protected from the vagaries of an individual or set of individuals. Perhaps it is a relic of our colonial past, when Governors had, virtually, unlimited powers and Legislatures, leaders of public opinion and progressive political parties appeared to be tossed around, at the whims and fancies (forgive the cliche) of Governors, on the stormy seas of British Imperialism. But I have strayed.

Dookeran, those on the UNC’s back bench, including one of the most highly principled persons to ever grace any Commonwealth Caribbean Parliament, Gillian Lucky, and the party or parties linking up with Dookeran, will emerge, I wager, either as the next Opposition Party, or on a long shot as the next Government of Trinidad and Tobago. And Dookeran can and will have the last laugh.

Even the displacing of the UNC will be enough until the next election bell rings. If my reading of the political mood is correct, persons and groups, who in an earlier day gave support to the Organisation of National Reconstruction, will rally behind Dookeran’s on the horizon political dispensation.

Once more, my reading of the political situation is that the Keith Noel Citizens Referendum may be a device, given the nature and thrust of the referendum, to be a testing of the waters of those in opposition to the ruling People’s National Movement. Not only does the Keith Noel Citizens Referendum’s explanatory Paper declare: “Stand Up And Be Counted In The Country’s First Referendum on: Crime, Poverty, Leadership”, but goes on to add: “Your Vote Will Help Change Politics in Trinidad and Tobago Forever.” No matter how the explanatory Paper is read it is a political declaration of war on the ruling Party.

The proverbial battle lines are drawn, and it is Winston Dookeran and whatever is his eventual political party, and not Basdeo Panday, and his weary and backward looking United National Congress which will prevail.