Hav­ing re­viewed the pro­pos­als of the Ad­vi­so­ry Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mit­tee, es­tab­lished by the Prime Min­is­ter to pre­sum­ably set up a full com­mis­sion, my next ob­jec­tive is to pur­sue the is­sue as to whether or not a change of the Con­sti­tu­tion is re­al­is­able in the im­me­di­ate or even medi­um term.

This is crit­i­cal for a change to be achieved, as the ac­cept­ed view is that trans­for­ma­tion of so­ci­ety through the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion is not a re­al­is­tic ob­jec­tive.

The his­to­ry and na­ture of the es­tab­lish­ment of the com­mit­tee, the con­flict­ual state of par­ty pol­i­tics—no hope of achiev­ing any­thing ap­proach­ing a con­sen­sus, the re­quire­ment of a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty to pass a fi­nalised doc­u­ment in­to law, and crit­i­cal­ly, the time frame for the work to be­gin and be com­plet­ed—are all in­dica­tive of no re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tion of ar­riv­ing at a con­sen­su­al draft.

Com­pound­ing the above and more are the stud­ied po­si­tions of the two ma­jor par­ties to refuse to par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions. That left both the PNM and the UNC with the op­tion of rais­ing ob­jec­tions to what­ev­er el­e­ments of the draft pro­duced by the com­mit­tee.

The PNM has sig­nalled its non-ac­cep­tance of the pro­pos­als and stat­ed its in­ten­tion to pro­duce its own doc­u­ment. Ful­ly aware that there can be no change to the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion with­out its sup­port in the Par­lia­ment, the UNC could not be both­ered with re­spond­ing to any in­vi­ta­tion to se­ri­ous­ly par­tic­i­pate in the dis­cus­sions and/or the sub­se­quent dis­cus­sions.

The his­tor­i­cal con­text of the ap­point­ment of the Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee to con­sult and pro­duce a draft is al­so im­por­tant. The PNM, in op­po­si­tion in the run-in to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, promised to in­sti­tute dis­cus­sions and to have a new con­sti­tu­tion in place.

No such doc­u­ment was pro­duced, not even at­tempt­ed. The promise was re­peat­ed be­fore the 2020 poll; the es­tab­lish­ment of the com­mit­tee was a promise of a dif­fer­ent kind a year plus be­fore the 2025 poll.

In the in­stance of the PNM and the DLP (UNC), such stat­ed in­ten­tions and at­tempts at re­form have an in­struc­tive his­to­ry to them.

When it seemed that the British would not be per­suad­ed to grant in­de­pen­dence to a frac­tured and con­flict-laden re­la­tion­ship be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion in 1962, Dr Er­ic Williams and Dr Rudranath Capildeo, with the as­sis­tance of Taj­mool Ho­sein and Sir El­lis Clarke, set­tled their dif­fer­ences and ar­rived at a com­pro­mise on mat­ters such as the ap­point­ment of the in­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench and the re­quire­ment for con­sul­ta­tion be­tween the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader.

The sub­se­quent Queen’s Hall con­sul­ta­tion to for­mu­late the In­de­pen­dence Con­sti­tu­tion pro­duced the doc­u­ment au­thored by El­lis Clarke. In the present, the par­ties do not have to per­suade an over­see­ing colo­nial gov­ern­ment in Britain to have a frame­work and a process to ar­rive at a con­sti­tu­tion ac­cept­able to both sides.

In the in­stance of the Hugh Wood­ing Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion es­tab­lished by Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams to up­date the in­de­pen­dence ex­pe­ri­ence re­port­ed, the Prime Min­is­ter re­ject­ed the ma­jor pro­pos­als of the com­mis­sion’s draft, those hav­ing to do with a sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, etc.

Williams re­marked that the PR sys­tem was “like a dag­ger aimed at the heart of the PNM to de­stroy its ma­jori­ties.” Williams com­mis­sioned his own draft and, with a 24-12 ma­jor­i­ty in the House, was as­sured of hav­ing the Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion passed.

PM Row­ley does not have the same re­quired ma­jor­i­ty and is, there­fore, most acute­ly aware that there is lit­tle, more pre­cise­ly, no chance of the Op­po­si­tion UNC of to­day lend­ing its sup­port and re­quired votes to agree on and pass a con­sti­tu­tion draft for­mu­lat­ed in the man­ner first by the com­mit­tee and/or any com­mis­sion that may sub­se­quent­ly pro­duce a doc­u­ment re­quir­ing spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty sup­port.

Maybe PM Row­ley is supreme­ly hope­ful/con­fi­dent that his par­ty will win the re­quired ma­jor­i­ty in the sched­uled gen­er­al elec­tion of 2025, which will give him and the PNM the abil­i­ty to pass in­to law a con­sti­tu­tion of their lik­ing.

One ob­vi­ous po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy will be for the Gov­ern­ment, un­able to at­tract the sup­port of the Op­po­si­tion to have its own doc­u­ment passed by the Par­lia­ment and then re­sort to the norm: Blame the Op­po­si­tion for be­ing ob­struc­tion­ist and ex­er­cise the hope that its re­fusal will re­sult in ad­di­tion­al elec­toral sup­port for the PNM; the UNC por­trayed as re­fus­ing to do “what is best for the coun­try”—the  games politi­cians play at the ex­pense of the coun­try they lead!

So, the coun­try will go in­to an­oth­er five-year elec­tion and gov­er­nance cy­cle with­out com­ing even close to a re­form of the 1976 Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion, which has been wide­ly agreed to, which does not meet the needs of a 21st cen­tu­ry T&T. As a point to note, the Wood­ing Draft and the one put for­ward by the UNC/PP are on­ly two of the half dozen or so de­vel­oped over the last al­most 50 years, all not hav­ing any­thing like ma­jor­i­ty sup­port.

The re­spon­si­bil­i­ty now lies with the elec­torate or pop­u­la­tion to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate that nei­ther of the ma­jor par­ties wants a con­sti­tu­tion that is na­tion­al­ly agreed to. The ob­vi­ous in­ten­tion of ei­ther of the ma­jors is to some­how get a doc­u­ment that favours it passed through the Par­lia­ment and let the “dev­il take the hind­most.”

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er is a free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host and News Di­rec­tor at TTT, pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad, cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press, and grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and the St Au­gus­tine In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.