‘Do as I say!’

The date was Wednesday August 28, 2002; the time suspended somewhere between ten and eleven in the morning.

The House of Representatives had just aborted the Second Session of the Seventh Parliament of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Caught in the jaws of an unrelenting 18-18 tie, it had been unable to elect a presiding officer. Former UNC Speaker, Hector Mc Clean, the PNM candidate, had not found favour with his old friends and the UNC’s offering of Wade Mark, had proved equally unappetising to the Balisier boys and girls. Thus, after employing its provisional tenure to boost its ratings, Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s administration had no choice but to announce it was ready to face the people. Each side of the seemingly mismatched parliamentary equation went to a Red House room to hold its press conference. Manning, in his crowded PM’s chamber, as the leader of the party in tenuous power, was the first to address the media.

When he opened the floor to questions, I asked the nervous-looking PNM head, what action he would take on campaign finance reform if he managed to secure a parliamentary majority in the polls. Whether he felt tough legislation was necessary. The PM appeared surprised by my enquiry, odd really, given that in Opposition, and in uncertain 18-18 rule, he and his had identified, as the root cause of UNC corruption, its debt to political financiers. The Prime Minister muttered something about change being necessary and the PNM having to look into the matter if it won. He then moved on to the next question. I immediately came to two conclusions. The first was that the last issue Manning needed to make a definitive statement on was campaign finance. Not when he was about to enter the political battle of his life. He would need all the millions the financiers were offering. My second determination was that he and the PNM would cry, “wolf” only when the crafty brutes were wearing a Rising Sun jacket. If the wolf came to dinner in a Balisier tie, they became little Red Riding Hoods. From the PNM conference, I moved on to the more spacious committee room where the UNC 18 were awaiting the arrival of the press corps. There I received an unexpected hearty welcome from Bas’ bodyguards who had been waging war and boycotts against Newsday reporters. But with an election holding public attention, I guessed that they had now decided they needed all the publicity they could get.

I sat to face a grinning, safe Couva North seat, pensioned, Kensington Panday and his grimmer-looking MPs. Again at the appropriate moment, I posed the very question to the UNC boss that I had asked Mr Manning. His reply was even more cryptic, its certainty shrouded in irrelevant political issues. I repeated the query. In short hand. “Campaign finance reform? Yes or no?” I asked him. Realising I had no intention of letting the matter go, the UNC leader offered as feeble a promise as his PNM nemesis. I was left to surmise that Panday and the UNC were as interested in change to the way their campaign coffers were filled as much as the PNM and Manning, that is to say, not at all. Each side was prepared to bellow at the other from the Opposition benches, charges of rampant corruption and birthday-suited patronage. “Piarco!” one side shouted.  “CEPEP!” came the cry from the other side. Easy words, which didn’t compromise future life-saving deeds when the Westminster tide turned in their favour, washing its treasures onto arid campaign shores. Moreover, what they were really chanting from their seats was, “We want back in power, so we can hand out to ours.” It was a pathetic political dirge. Neither party was close to the issue of constitutional reform. A politician had to be mature to conceive or achieve this. The PNM and UNC were too mired in the minutiae to tackle wider issues.

Look at what was happening to the already drafted Integrity in Public Life Act regulations. Or rather, look at what was not happening. These had not been brought to Parliament by the Attorney General. And one would think that the AG would have had ample time in which to lay the rules to enforce the Act. Glenda Morean couldn’t claim she was too busy drafting Bills to table the accompanying regulations, not when her Kidnapping Bill was a tasteless legislative tossed salad. One of its wilting lettuce leaves, Clause Six, prohibited anyone-police, family, included — from negotiating or assisting in any negotiation to obtain a ransom for the release of a person who has been wrongfully restrained or confined. The penalty upon conviction, 25 years jail. After such a disastrous attempt at Bill preparation, why shouldn’t the AG dedicate her full spare time to housekeeping and locate the already drafted Integrity regulations? Why not bring these to the House so MPs, ministers, etc could declare their assets and income?  Why not indeed? The public conclusion could be, and was, only one, and it was a fair assertion. Voters were thinking that the PNM, like the UNC, had little interest in promoting integrity in public life. Just as in August 2002, I concluded that neither one 18, nor the other, was keen on campaign finance reform.

Suzanne Mills is the Editor of the daily Newsday.