Dilemma without precedent

The position in which the Parliamentary Opposition United National Congress (UNC) finds itself today is without precedent in the Commonwealth Caribbean.

It has arisen from the clearly awkward decision of former prime minister Basdeo Panday to hold on to the officer of Leader of the Opposition in the House of Representatives although Winston Dookeran was returned unopposed as Political Leader of the UNC in the recent Executive Committee elections of the Party. Meanwhile, for Mr Panday to state that he would relinquish the post of Opposition Leader to Mr Dookeran should President George Maxwell Richards determine that he (Panday) no longer commands the support of majority UNC MPs is unamusingly absurd.

What is at issue here is not whether the President should act, having been called upon to do so, but that Panday should step down in keeping with the Westminster model by which the country’s Parliamentary practice is guided.

Instead, Panday’s adamant stand is an uncomfortably pale imitation of that adopted by Louis XIV of France, when he declared in 1655: "I am the State." Only this time around it is the Chairman of the UNC stating, in effect: "I am the Leader of the Opposition." Louis XIV would go on to rule until 1715, 60 years later, but his absurdly selfish posture would contribute, many years after his death, to the French Revolution and the fall of the French monarchy.

Basdeo Panday will not remain that much longer as Leader of the Opposition but his attitude on the question of Office may contribute, however unconsciously, to the eroding of the authority and position in Trinidad and Tobago politics of the UNC.

In the process, Prime Minister Patrick Manning, and he is only human, is faced with a dilemma. For while, officially, at least, Manning will be expected to conform to the letter of the Westminster model, his thinking, nonetheless, cannot ignore the spirit of the Westminster system. The question arises, as indeed it must: "Should the Prime Minister follow, slavishly, the accepted system of Westminster Parliamentary procedure and pursue dialogue with the present designated Leader of the Opposition, instead of, say, the Opposition’s Political Leader who, according to convention; should be the Leader of the Opposition, provided he has a seat in the House? And Dookeran is a sitting Member of Parliament!

Another problem has been created by Panday’s stubborn refusal to adhere to the Westminster model and instead tacitly form new rules. And it is this: Which Leader — Political Leader or Leader of the Parliamentary Opposition — in keeping with tradition in such a situation as exists today, should be expected to name Shadow Ministers? With whom must Government maintain dialogue? Who must the nation view as the alternative Prime Minister? Who will name the Opposition spokespersons on various policy matters?

The predicament in which the UNC finds itself today should not be viewed as limited to the Party itself, an internal UNC matter, but rather must be accepted as one of national concern. The UNC is the Party seen as the alternative Government and if it is fractured at the level of Parliamentary Opposition and at the wider level of national organisation then the national audience is entitled to be concerned, even alarmed.

Had the UNC taken a Party decision not to be bound by the rules of the Westminster system but rather to seek to change them not simply at the Party level, but at the national level this would, perhaps, have been understandable. This could have been seen or at least treated as a desire not to be bound by a custom originating in another country, indeed one that was until 1962, TT’s colonial master.

It could have been accepted as being, both as experimental in the evolutionary nature of politics and political systems. After all, Constitutions change, political systems change. The France of Louis XIV changed from a monarchical to a Republican system. To the Northwest of the Commonwealth Caribbean, the former 13 American colonies of the United Kingdom, following on their gaining of Independence after bloody battles, established a new political system, a new political culture in which the approach to the construction of government and the Parliamentary Opposition would be completely divorced from that of the Westminster model.

But not only the United States, but Burma, Nigeria and Pakistan, inter alia, would reject the Westminster model.

I have attempted to take a dispassionate view of the problem of fractured leadership of the UNC and the concern this poses both to the Party and the nation. The truth is Panday erred and, rather than wait for the supporters of Dookeran in Parliament to approach the President, he should step aside.

Panday’s position is absurd and ultimately, should the situation drag on long enough, which from where I sit, does not appear possible, will do Trinidad and Tobago tremendous hurt. By acting in what is, after all, the only reasonable way open to him, Basdeo Panday may be able to soften the inevitable blows of history.