Max­ie Cuffie

This com­ing year we are hav­ing three elec­tions. While there has been great fo­cus on the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions and the lo­cal-gov­ern­ment elec­tions, there has not been much at­ten­tion to the pres­i­den­tial elec­tion, which is due in just over a month's time.

Our pres­i­dents are elect­ed by an elec­toral col­lege which com­pris­es mem­bers of both hous­es of Par­lia­ment. Con­trary to the view that the se­lec­tion is a gift of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the fi­nal choice in this elec­tion, es­pe­cial­ly with a coali­tion gov­ern­ment in place, should be the re­sult of com­pro­mise among the var­i­ous par­ties (in­clud­ing the PNM, al­though that may be ask­ing too much of our "win­ner­take- all" sys­tem).

We have had con­test­ed elec­tions be­fore, most no­tably when the PNM put up Jus­tice An­tho­ny Lucky in 1997 to op­pose the nom­i­na­tion of a sit­ting politi­cian in Arthur NR Robin­son and the UNC in turn, nom­i­nat­ed for­mer Sen­ate pres­i­dent the late Ganace Ram­di­al to op­pose the 2003 nom­i­na­tion of George Maxwell Richards. In both cas­es the choice of the rul­ing ma­jor­i­ty pre­vailed, al­though the tal­ly showed Robin­son was ap­point­ed with at least one vote from the PNM.

There have been no re­ports of meet­ings, nom­i­na­tions or even dis­cus­sion among the PP lead­ers about their choic­es for the pres­i­den­cy. Un­der the Con­sti­tu­tion, the elec­tion has to take place in just over a month, giv­en the term of of­fice of the in­cum­bent ends on March 16, 2013. The lack of ac­tiv­i­ty sug­gests the choice may be left up to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar and her re­put­ed ca­bal, who de­cide on all ma­jor ap­point­ments.

It should not be. She has not proven her­self to be very good at mak­ing such judg­ments.

While the ap­point­ment of the un­qual­i­fied Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine as this coun­try's in­tel­li­gence chief re­duced the en­tire con­cept to ab­sur­di­ty, the fact she has had to jet­ti­son sev­en min­is­ters from her Cab­i­net in the first two years, as well as the still-lin­ger­ing con­fu­sion over the long-de­layed and con­stant­ly chang­ing board ap­point­ments, sug­gest not just an in­abil­i­ty to make de­ci­sions, but al­so a propen­si­ty to set­tle on the wrong choic­es.

This ten­den­cy was again seen in the most im­por­tant ap­point­ment the Cab­i­net has had to make, when it left the de­ci­sion on the choice of the Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor un­til the very last minute, with Cab­i­net wran­gling pre­vent­ing any prop­er vet­ting of the nom­i­nees. The even­tu­al de­ci­sion was to set­tle for the least qual­i­fied of the can­di­dates.

Giv­en the height­ened role which the pres­i­den­cy is ex­pect­ed to play in a di­vid­ed pop­u­la­tion, the choice should not be left up to the Prime Min­is­ter or Cab­i­net alone.

The at­tack by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley on act­ing Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel- Smith over the han­dling of the Sec­tion 34 con­tro­ver­sy and the sub­se­quent at­tack by UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er over the han­dling of the same is­sue by the sub­stan­tive Pres­i­dent sug­gests that the hold­er of that of­fice will in­creas­ing­ly be judged through a par­ti­san lens, un­less some­one is ap­point­ed who has been demon­stra­bly shown to be above such con­sid­er­a­tions.

The pres­i­den­tial Web site de­scribes the role of His Ex­cel­len­cy George Maxwell Richards as "qua­si-cer­e­mo­ni­al" with "(m)any, but not all, of the roles and func­tions of the Pres­i­dent as en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of T&T." Both Robin­son and Richards have been called up­on to make de­cid­ed­ly po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions and from be­ing above pol­i­tics, the pres­i­den­cy is now be­ing seen as an in­te­gral part of the par­ty po­lit­i­cal ma­chin­ery.

Po­lit­i­cal par­ties like the COP, as well as the TOP and the NJAC, must there­fore have a say in the even­tu­al choice of can­di­date for whom their rep­re­sen­ta­tives willbe vot­ing when the elec­tion is held. Eth­nic­i­ty, to be sure, will be an is­sue. Pres­i­dent Richards, who de­scribed him­self as a "red nig­ger" in his in­au­gur­al ad­dress by quot­ing Derek Wal­cott's The Schooner Flight, is de­scribed in his Wikipedia pro­file as "the first Head of state in the An­glo­phone Caribbean of Amerindi­an an­ces­try."

Eth­nic­i­ty is still im­por­tant in our pol­i­tics, as it is in the Unit­ed States and oth­er coun­tries. Al­though con­sti­tut­ing the sec­ond largest re­li­gious de­nom­i­na­tion, the coun­try has nev­er had a Hin­du Pres­i­dent, which is re­gret­table, but with a Hin­du Prime Min­is­ter, and with "eth­nic stock­ing" ac­cu­sa­tions still bub­bling un­der the sur­face, Per­sad- Bisses­sar may not con­sid­er this time an op­por­tune mo­ment to cor­rect that his­tor­i­cal anom­aly.

As with her UNC pre­de­ces­sor, who was ru­moured to have had de­signs on the pres­i­den­cy with his bid to anoint Car­los John as his suc­ces­sor, there were re­ports Per­sad-Bisses­sar has jet­ti­soned plans (for now) to have her­self ap­point­ed to the of­fice and Jack Warn­er re­place her.

On­ly Robin Mon­tano has overt­ly ex­pressed in­ter­est in the of­fice, but our democ­ra­cy would be bet­ter served if all of our po­lit­i­cal par­ties were to sub­mit a nom­i­nee (for­mal­ly or in­for­mal­ly) with­out leav­ing it as a choice for the Prime Min­is­ter and her Cab­i­net. The Feb­ru­ary 11, 2008 re-elec­tion of Pres­i­dent Richards was un­op­posed and took all of three min­utes.

A lot has changed since then. At the last Ju­ly 11 cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment, the Prime Min­is­ter sug­gest­ed she would not rule out a third term for the Pres­i­dent. One sus­pects by now she has. n Max­ie Cuffie runs a me­dia con­sul­tan­cy, In­te­grat­ed Me­dia Com­pa­ny Ltd, is an eco­nom­ics grad­u­ate of the UWI and holds an MPA from the Har­vard Kennedy School as a Ma­son Fel­low in Pub­lic Pol­i­cy and Man­age­ment.