UNC politics stagger on

The second blow came last Saturday when, at the party’s National Assembly, the UNC faithful knocked down Panday’s proposal that a no-confidence motion in Mr Dookeran be deferred.

That response revealed that Mr Panday can now lead a certain section of UNC supporters only by catering to their biases — indeed, that response might well show that Mr Panday has never led in any other way.

Clearly, Mr Dookeran has been demonised so effectively by the party’s executive that the hardcore supporters are deaf to the machinations that once made Mr Panday a fearsome political animal. The once-unquestioned UNC founder was even forced to reveal his mind in his very plea, telling the noisome crowd that, if they ejected Mr Dookeran, they would be playing right into his hands and have the party tied up in court for years. In other words, Mr Panday’s call for a deferral was not based on any wish to re-unite with Mr Dookeran, but on a desire to get him out of the party without any legal backlash.

It is the first blow, however, which is the more injurious. The UNC political culture has always differed from the PNM’s in its close link between religion and grassroots support. Whereas Indo-Trinidadians who are Christian or Muslim have been more flexible in their voting behaviour, the Hindu core has been unwavering in its ethnic support.

This is so intrinsic to Indo-based politics that, when the UNC came to office, it immediately instituted the mistaken strategy of trying to win Afro-Trinidadian support by catering to Afro religious interests — the Shouter Baptists and Orisas. This strategy was mistaken because PNM politics is based on Afro-Creole nationalism, not on religion.

So the open support by major Hindu leaders for Winston Dookeran may well signal a tectonic shift in Indo-Trinidadian politics. Some commentators have already rushed to say that this support might work against Mr Dookeran, since voters do not want a Hindu party. Yet, before, the criticism was that Mr Dookeran was drawing his support only from middle-class Indos and others. In any case, Mr Dookeran is not himself a Hindu, so such analyses seem based more on bias than anything else. Dookeran’s political drawbacks are all personal — a lack of charisma and a lack of political cunning. But these are the very traits which have undermined genuine politics (in the sense of an activity which is based on compromise between different interest groups for the good of the whole society) in our country.

Now the Hindu leaders’ declaration does not automatically translate into wider support for Mr Dookeran. But this development must be of great concern to Mr Panday and his executive. The Hindu leaders have no doubt already begun trying to persuade their devotees that the UNC and Indo interests will be better served with Mr Dookeran as undisputed leader, than with Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, Jack Warner, and the other executive members being led from the back by Mr Panday. Even if such sermons fail to win the Hindu constituency over to Mr Dookeran, they will almost certainly exacerbate the disunity amongst the support base, thus ensuring that the party will perform badly in the polls.

So the key question now is whether Mr Dookeran can get a knockout, or at the very least a decision, now that Mr Panday and the executive are punch-drunk. If he cannot, then Opposition politics will continue to stagger as the next general election draws near.