During the 2015-2020 electoral term, and in previous years, the Parliament of T&T had been like a war zone with incessant, disgraceful and unproductive conflicts between the Government and Opposition. Hostile and devoid of civility, pugnacious politics in the Legislative Chamber has obstructed national progress, blighted the quest for sustainable development, and frustrated the hope for solutions to so many of our chronic problems. This nonsense should stop from August 2020 and the people’s business ought to be the only business of all 41 MPs. Protracted animosity and antagonism absorb too much parliamentary energy while social ills fester, leaving the long-suffering electorate disadvantaged.
Why has combative politics been like a millstone around our necks? We have voted in the past as we will on August 10 to elect 41 MPs to govern T&T, but the existing tradition caters for a majority party sometimes with a little more than half of the representatives forming the Government and with full ruling powers. Recently, the ratio was 23-18, and pollsters predict such formulae as 22-19, or 20-21, more or less. There certainly will be a government and an opposition, regardless of the margin in 2020-25.
‘First-past-the-post or winner takes all’ is part of the legacy of the so-called Westminster system where the majority party has earned the right to form the Government. But, that system has been abused, corrupted for decades and taken to perverted extremes creating a dictatorship of the majority Party. The ensuing swing away from true democracy virtually ignores the presence of an Opposition, recognised in the Westminster formula, and with a responsibility to both electorate and country.
Our version that the party with the majority rules has never served us well, since that party usually flaunts absolute power with shameful confidence, disregarding any opposition with scornful disdain and alienation. This has been so for half a century and more, and the smokescreen is, of course, the Westminster provision. But our practice is an aberration driven by the glamour of commanding governance and this is at the root of our problem. That stance merely invited and facilitated the obvious resistance, distrust, antipathy and non-cooperation from members of the Opposition who are expected to grovel into submission. This is a normal reaction to the blatant autocracy of any majority party. When will we learn that power generously saturated with humility can confer sainthood on leaders?
Is there any hope beyond our election of 41 MPs wherein a little more than one half may run our national affairs? Thus far, any ruling half or majority party by itself has been unable to efficiently take us forward. It’s no wonder that for past decades there was a failure to even provide basic amenities such as pipe-borne water for several communities, and today our murder rate has risen to astronomical levels, and crime control is beyond us. Why? Because of the deception that the majority party can govern by itself with its limited wisdom and expertise. Meanwhile, the talents and abilities of the elected representatives in the Opposition are not harnessed in the search for solutions to myriad unsolved national problems, except of course where a special majority vote is required, and that’s a disaster zone. Meanwhile, the outcome of several debates is determined in advance since the majority party has the final word.
This is not about any particular political party for they are all imprisoned in a governance culture with traditions seemingly cast in granite. Modern T&T can do better and the population continue to vote in expectation of better governance. But how can we escape towards a brighter tomorrow? For several decades one school of thought has envisaged constitutional reform. That remains a pipe dream and it may not come to pass in the next five years. The electorate of August 10 will vote for 41 MPs to govern them now and expect all of these in both the Government and Opposition to put first, the nation and its people.
Co-operation, collaboration and mutual respect are not beyond the reach of any Government and Opposition. Furthermore, reform in attitudes and a new mindset for all MPs can make a difference. It’s time to be liberated from the dastardly model of ‘we are here and you are there’, or ‘we are in charge’, ‘do what you want’. That’s the hubris that has defined our failed system and retarded national development with the parliamentary engine operating on half capacity.
The late congressman John Lewis, iconic champion of voting rights since the days of Martin Luther King, appealed for good sense in the midst of diversity when he said, ‘we are all from the same house’. Yes, our 41 MPs belong to T&T and ought not to function specifically for any political party, but for the welfare of the national community. Barack Obama in referring to their two-party system reminded his people that they are ‘not of red States and blue States, but all constitute one America’. That holds good for us in creating an enlightened parliamentary aura proclaiming that we are not red or yellow constituencies, but one T&T. The Bible shares an illustration, good for any generation, referring to the functioning of the human body: ‘the eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need of you, neither can the head say to the feet, I have no need of you, and there should be no schisms in the body.’ What a difference there can be with interdependence in all human relations including that of the Red House tenants.
Can we do better in government-opposition relations immediately from August 2020? You say it won’t work, but all 41 MPs have the intelligence to make it work. Marshlands were reclaimed where skyscrapers now stand, deserts have been irrigated where orchards flourish today and sprawling cities built, while elsewhere, roadways are tunnelled through mountains. Ocean depths have been conquered, and on July 31, 2020, a space rocket with cameras left Florida’s Cape Canaveral, pointed towards Mars at 6,000 miles per hour, on a seven-month trip to cover 300 million miles from earth. Indeed, mankind has achieved so much, but in wealthy T&T with our small population, policy-makers remain unnecessarily befuddled and mesmerised by national issues for which solutions certainly exist. Our idiocy has for too long retarded our progress.
We go to the polls on August 10 reminding our 41 MPs that they are all to be agents of change, and the time is now to give togetherness a chance. The dictum holds true, ‘Together we aspire, Together we achieve’. Ignore that, and we perish.