The major failing of the People's Partnership (PP) Government as it approaches its first year in office has not been one of the major issues of the day, but rather an inability of the political forces which make up the Government to achieve an organic link which could bring quality and coherence to governance.
To say that the party has held together in the face of predictions that it would not have lasted as long as the "Red House fire" is an admission of failure to evolve a cohesive and dynamic party representative of the society. Almost every time the Government threatens to implode it is because of the ideological, political, interest group and ethnic strains pulling in different directions rather than being brought together. Illustrative of the failing is that on every occasion the conflicts spill out into the open a crisis meeting amongst the five leaders is held. The meetings usually end without commitment to institutional structuring of the party; instead reliance is placed on a public relations pappyshow complete with photograph session, with the leaders painting empty smiles on their faces. It reminds of a Bro Valentino observation about Carnival: "When de Carnival come and pass, the people does go back to they race and class so de only thing to bring together is mas."
It is this major failing of the PP which renders the Government unable to make good on its election promises to dramatically intervene in the criminal culture of the day; it impacts negatively on the Government's ability to begin a meaningful transformation of the economy. Notwithstanding the forced acceptance of the five per cent by Watson Duke, the Government has failed to establish a meaningful tripartite arrangement with trade unions and employers as a means of peace, trust and the possibility of a return to short-term economic growth. Nizam Mohammed's tirade, in the process of which he was seen by elements of the population as threatening their existence, is a classic example of the failure of the PP to bring rationality to the historical task of achieving harmony and equity amongst the ethnic and cultural groups in the society. Not even a prime ministerial statement chastising Mohammed for his outburst could quell the internal conflict within the PP: an obviously pained Baptiste-Cornelis felt offended; more than a few ministers sought quietly to urge Mohammed on to achieve the not-too-hidden agenda of rebalancing ethnic power in those areas in which Afro-Trinidad and Tobago is said to have an ascendancy.
At the other end of the political divide, Jack Warner roundly condemned the Mohammed approach and said there is no official Government policy to redress imbalances. It is not that Warner is politically naïve to believe there is no such tendency within the UNC; it is in fact a statement of someone being fully aware that there are those who want an immediate rebalancing. He was however saying to them they have not been able to win Government approval for their agenda. McLeod likened Mohammed to Cro Cro, seen by the UNC as the arch-PNM racist. Daaga has been left groping for an intelligent response. As previously argued by this column, NJAC and MSC are weak political gatherings but hold an important voice; if their voices were to be brushed aside labour and Afro-T&T would be seen as being silenced.
TOP's response was equally condemnatory of Mohammed. And COP, ever uneasy, feeling that it has been sidelined and at times vulgarised, joined those who said Mohammed was wrong to raise the issue in the manner he had. Meanwhile, Warner, seeking to hold the centre, dragged his political leader and Prime Minister into his statements of "no government policy" on ethnic balancing.
The failure is in the inability of the leaders of the five-party alliance to create the structures within for open discourse and the adoption of a programmatic solution. Surely, the very passionate feelings on all sides within the PP about ethnicity, equality and equity should have found a forum within the party to be discussed. Most assuredly also there should have been a start to the process of resolution rather than having guerilla warfare engaged over the historical legacy of slavery, indentureship and colonial rule.
The contention of this column is that these failings are the result of the parties within the party merely scrambling to govern and share in the spoils of government for their ethnic groups. Instead of establishing an institutional foundation within the PP with a coherent political philosophy of what is to be systematically attempted by the coalition Government, there is the desire to settle scores and redress what are perceived to be imbalances with bullying tactics and crude measures. The same also stands for economic development, for creating quality and balance in human development through a reorganised education system.
Although the PP directorate and followship would resist any attempt to liken the party to the PNM, the five-party collation is following the form of party-government relationship established by Dr Williams: the party being irrelevant to the government in power and only useful as a point of reference when the need for propaganda is there to pull the leadership out of self-inflicted distress, and to campaign for the next election. If that form of governance proved inadequate a model in a party such as the PNM, being something of a homogenous force where the leadership ideology represented the mainstream thinking of the party, how much more ill-suited and counter-productive would it be in a widely diversified (even if only on the surface) party as the People's Partnership? A major element of the problem is the incapacity of political leadership to share power: Robinson felt he and the Creole leadership of the NAR were the ones who mattered; Panday felt himself powerless without leverage; next time around he said unity had to be achieved on a UNC bed; Manning was the emperor; now guerilla tactics are being used to achieve individual group agendas while the promise of a united and organised party remains unachieved. What is really disturbing is the belief by many elements in the PP that what is being engaged is the way the politics should be played.