In an ad­dress to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Spe­cial Con­ven­tion on “The Ques­tion of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment with Spe­cial Em­pha­sis on the Po­si­tion of To­ba­go” on Ju­ly 23 and 24, 1977, at the Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, prime min­is­ter and PNM po­lit­i­cal leader, Dr Er­ic Williams said:

“Now for the third ba­sic point of view emerg­ing from the par­ty dis­cus­sions: if any­body is to speak on this, the Po­lit­i­cal Leader re­spect­ful­ly re­quests that he be ex­cused from tak­ing any part. What was the mo­tive be­hind the ini­ti­a­tion of the cam­paign in To­ba­go for in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment? For­give me if the Po­lit­i­cal Leader is too busy to in­volve him­self in triv­i­al­i­ties. With due re­spect to my col­leagues who would be quite pre­pared to draw swords with any­body, draw blood, the Po­lit­i­cal Leader is a man of peace, not as ag­gres­sive as some of my col­leagues, call­ing no names. On this par­tic­u­lar ques­tion, if I may re­mind the Con­ven­tion, my own po­si­tion as Po­lit­i­cal Leader was clear. I knew a lot of the back­ground to it. When Mr Basil Pitt told me that this had emerged sur­rep­ti­tious­ly in the house-to-house cam­paign in the elec­tions, I brought it out in­to the open in a pub­lic meet­ing in To­ba­go and stat­ed the point of view of a rea­son­able man.” (Ad­dress by the Po­lit­i­cal Leader, pp. 2-3).

This con­ven­tion was held af­ter ANR Robin­son pre­sent­ed his par­lia­men­tary mo­tion on in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment for To­ba­go ear­li­er in 1977. While Williams re­gard­ed “the ini­ti­a­tion of the cam­paign in To­ba­go for in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment” as among “triv­i­al­i­ties” that he would not in­volve him­self in, it has be­come a mat­ter of im­mense pro­por­tions since 1977.

The PNM missed the mark on the is­sue of in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment in the 1976 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign based on Williams’ rev­e­la­tion of what Basil Pitt told him about the house-to-house cam­paign by the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress (DAC) can­di­dates (ANR Robin­son and Win­ston Mur­ray) against the PNM can­di­dates (Basil Pitt and Wilbert Win­ches­ter).

The his­to­ry of the PNM on this is­sue has placed them on a weak elec­toral foot­ing since the in­tro­duc­tion of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly by Act No. 37 of 1980. For some, it may be re­gard­ed as be­ing rein­tro­duced be­cause an As­sem­bly ex­ist­ed from 1768 be­fore it was abol­ished in the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry by the British gov­ern­ment.

The on­ly time when the PNM was able to con­trol the THA oc­curred in 2001 when the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress en­tered that THA elec­tion with the in­ten­tion of split­ting Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion votes to help the PNM win. This pos­ture oc­curred af­ter Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son re­fused the ad­vice of prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day to ap­point sev­en de­feat­ed UNC can­di­dates from the De­cem­ber 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions as sen­a­tors and min­is­ters.

Pan­day strate­gised that he could wound Robin­son by caus­ing the NAR to lose that elec­tion on Jan­u­ary 29, 2001. His strat­e­gy worked. On Feb­ru­ary 14, 2001, Robin­son re­lent­ed and ap­point­ed the re­quest­ed per­sons as sen­a­tors and min­is­ters.

How­ev­er, the door for the PNM had been opened in To­ba­go by the UNC in 2001. Robin­son left the pres­i­den­cy in 2003, and the NAR be­came a shad­ow of its for­mer self af­ter­wards. When the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship pro­posed in­ter­nal self-gov­ern­ment in Jan­u­ary 2013, the PNM op­posed it in Par­lia­ment and won the en­su­ing THA elec­tion 12-0.

To­ba­go na­tion­al­ism has been ris­ing since 1976, when Dr Er­ic Williams re­vealed what Basil Pitt told him about that elec­tion cam­paign.

The PNM have since lost the trust of the To­ba­go elec­torate. They ex­per­i­ment­ed with dual lead­er­ship by sep­a­rat­ing par­ty lead­er­ship from As­sem­bly lead­er­ship. In our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture, that mod­el does not work. It failed for the PNM in To­ba­go, and it again failed for the PNM in the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions.

Far­ley Au­gus­tine, Chief Sec­re­tary, said dur­ing the 2025-2026 cam­paign that he would like to have a ref­er­en­dum, he would like to get con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty from the Par­lia­ment and then frame a mod­el of au­ton­o­my that would be home­grown and not di­rect­ed from Port-of-Spain. The time is right for self-de­ter­mi­na­tion first and au­ton­o­my af­ter. To­ba­go has wait­ed for too long to re­dress the hurt of the im­pe­ri­al­ist project that uni­fied the two is­lands and dis­card­ed To­ba­go’s laws and im­posed the laws of Trinidad on it as the new ex­ist­ing laws of the colony of T&T.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Act 1887, the Or­der-in-Coun­cil of 1889 and the fi­nal Or­der-in-Coun­cil of 1899 that com­plet­ed the sub­ju­ga­tion of To­ba­go to Trinidad need to be re­viewed. The De­cem­ber 2024 Bill was a Tro­jan Horse. Some of its pro­vi­sions were wor­thy and were re­cent­ly adopt­ed by this Gov­ern­ment for the THA (Amend­ment) Bill last week. The Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment’s hid­den con­trol in oth­er pro­vi­sions of the De­cem­ber 2024 Bill was un­palat­able.

A gen­uine at­tempt, de­void of hid­den con­trol for the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment, must now be made.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions, and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.