In the light of new calls for op­po­si­tion uni­ty, one has to con­sid­er if in­deed there has ever been uni­ty amongst the op­pos­ing po­lit­i­cal forces to be­gin with. The fact is our po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry is one that is con­stant­ly lit­tered with op­po­si­tion in­fight­ing even be­fore the gain­ing of in­de­pen­dence. Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing:

�2 Fol­low­ing the 1950 Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil elec­tions, the But­ler Par­ty, which had emerged as the clear win­ner of the elec­tions, was even­tu­al­ly spilt with the break­ing away of Mi­tra and Ash­ford Sinanan in par­tic­u­lar from the par­ty.

�2 By 1959, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty (DLP), found­ed by Bhadase Sagan Maraj, had be­come a pow­er­ful po­lit­i­cal ma­chine fol­low­ing its vic­to­ry over the rul­ing PNM in the Fed­er­al elec­tions in 1957 and the lo­cal elec­tions two years lat­er. How­ev­er, change in lead­er­ship from Bhadase to Dr Rudranath Capildeo led to the dis­in­te­gra­tion of the DLP in the face of con­tin­u­ous in­fight­ing and ab­sen­tee lead­er­ship on the part of Capildeo.

�2 Post 1986 gen­er­al elec­tions there were re­ports of con­flict with­in the op­po­si­tion PNM be­tween Patrick Man­ning and his oth­er two par­lia­men­tary col­leagues. Man­ning will lat­er face a se­ri­ous chal­lenge to his po­si­tion as leader of the PNM by Dr Kei­th Row­ley fol­low­ing the par­ty's re­turn to op­po­si­tion in 1995. In or­der to have an even clear­er per­spec­tive on the whole con­cept of op­po­si­tion dis­uni­ty one has to fo­cus on the re­al star of the show, the one and on­ly Bas­deo Pan­day. Let us ex­am­ine his cre­den­tials in this re­gard:

�2 In 1976, he is part of the col­lec­tive lead­er­ship of the ULF that al­so com­pris­es George Weekes and Raf­fique Shah. Af­ter the elec­tions, Pan­day, cer­tain­ly the most pop­u­lar of the lead­er­ship trio, turns his guns on Shah as he seeks to gain sole lead­er­ship of the par­ty. In a se­ries of pub­lic meet­ings he will po­lit­i­cal­ly de­stroy the char­ac­ter of Shah.

�2 The 1981 gen­er­al elec­tions had two main par­ties con­test­ing against the PNM, the ULF and the ONR. The in­ten­tion of Pan­day was ev­i­dent from the start which was ba­si­cal­ly to so­lid­i­fy his base among the rur­al In­do-Trinida­di­ans. In the process of do­ing so it was al­so es­sen­tial for him to ef­fec­tive­ly deal with the deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the ONR, one Su­ruj Ram­bachan, a young in­tel­lec­tu­al who many viewed as an as­pir­ing leader of the In­di­an, and by ex­ten­sion Hin­du, com­mu­ni­ty.

�2 In 1986, Pan­day en­ters in­to gov­ern­ment as part of the um­brel­la of op­po­si­tion par­ties, the NAR. He is giv­en the port­fo­lio of Min­is­ter of Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs. Yet as a very se­nior min­is­ter he even­tu­al­ly en­gages in pub­lic squab­bles with the Prime Min­is­ter, con­tribut­ing to his dis­missal from the gov­ern­ment.

�2 Pan­day in the post 1991 elec­tion pe­ri­od, hav­ing suc­ceed­ed in iso­lat­ing Robin­son and the NAR to To­ba­go, now re­sorts to fight­ing with mem­bers of his own par­ty: first there is Kelvin Ram­nath and then Hulsie Bhag­gan. Po­lit­i­cal­ly, they will both pay dear­ly.

�2 By 1995 Bas is Prime Min­is­ter and to his cred­it he does an ex­cel­lent job, re­sult­ing in his re­turn to of­fice in 2000. This ap­par­ent­ly is a shock to him be­cause with­in a year he is again fight­ing with mem­bers of his own par­ty.

�2 In 2001 Pan­day, forced to call an ear­ly elec­tion, cam­paigns not against the PNM but against Team Uni­ty, the par­ty com­pris­ing of the three men who sup­pos­ed­ly be­trayed him. The po­lit­i­cal ceme­tery re­ceives ad­di­tion­al mem­bers.

�2 Pan­day, by 2007, ab­sorbed in an at­mos­phere of crim­i­nal charges and court pro­ceed­ings, paves the way for Win­ston Dook­er­an to be­come the leader of the UNC. How­ev­er, old Bas re­fus­es to share the lime­light with Dooks and shows him the door. He chris­tens Dook­er­an's COP as the "corpse" and pop­u­lates the po­lit­i­cal ceme­tery once again.

At present, the "sil­ver fox" is again fight­ing with mem­bers of his own par­ty yet he says he is all for uni­ty. Iron­i­cal­ly, a man who had once made uni­ty the bat­tle cry of his po­lit­i­cal life is by all in­di­ca­tions the biggest ob­sta­cle to op­po­si­tion uni­ty. He has in­deed de­stroyed every and any vi­able per­spec­tive young leader and he boasts of the fact that he has buried them all. Why is it al­ways the case that every­one is to be blamed and not him? This man's cre­den­tials are there for every­one to see and, even so, there are those who will hang on to him un­til his last breath. As a for­mer sup­port­er of Pan­day I refuse to be giv­en to such fa­nati­cism.

Shiv­an Ma­haraj