Sat Ma­haraj

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple's (COP) first elec­tion since the May 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion is to be con­duct­ed with­in a num­ber of days. This elec­tion is a ma­jor de­vel­op­ment giv­en the fact that the COP is a ma­jor part­ner in the coali­tion that is the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. This de­vel­op­ment is sig­nif­i­cant in that it is the first time that one of the main play­ers is con­duct­ing an in­ter­nal elec­tion.Many peo­ple felt that with the hu­mil­i­at­ing de­feat of Bas­deo Pan­day fol­low­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tions of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress(UNC) that the COP should be ab­sorbed back in­to the UNC. It was felt that the COP was born out of that dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the au­to­crat­ic lead­er­ship style of Pan­day.While this may have been true, the mem­ber­ship did not re­main con­fined to the dis­af­fect­ed UNC sup­port­er.The COP mem­ber­ship widened as it drew mem­bers from among dis­af­fect­ed PNM sup­port­ers as well but main­ly its sup­port base came from those peo­ple who could not have iden­ti­fied with ei­ther the UNC or the PNM and be­longed to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic group of up­per mid­dle class.

The COP was the in­her­i­tor of the Al­bert Gomes POPPG, Hud­son-Phillips ONR, and Robin­son NAR po­lit­i­cal par­ties. On its own the COP can­not win a seat but it can aid and as­sist in the win­ning of sev­er­al bat­tle­ground seats. As such it will be po­lit­i­cal­ly wise for the COP to main­tain its iden­ti­ty and role with­in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.Oth­er than the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, the COP along with the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) are the on­ly par­ties of note with­in the Part­ner­ship. The oth­er two com­po­nent mem­bers, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice and the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) are not re­al­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly par­ties.

The MSJ, af­ter be­ing in gov­ern­ment, launched its foun­da­tion meet­ing while NJAC has been es­sen­tial­ly a cul­tur­al or­gan­i­sa­tion for the past three decades.The MSJ part­ners have used their priv­i­leged po­si­tion to con­tin­ue the PNM's poli­cies of se­lect­ed em­ploy­ment while an­oth­er open­ly sup­port­ed the Pub­lic Ser­vice protest.Now that they have signed an agree­ment on pay, he has open­ly be­come part of the labour protest against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Nei­ther of these pro­test­ers from with­in can win a re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion seat far less a par­lia­men­tary one.

The TOP is prepar­ing for the an­tic­i­pat­ed To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) elec­tions and as a re­sult there has been an in­creased num­ber of To­ba­go-re­lat­ed events and is­sues which have been on the na­tion­al agen­da in re­cent weeks.The con­test in To­ba­go has evolved in­to TOP/Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment ver­sus PNM/THA.The TOP lead­er­ship in the form of Ash­worth Jack has emerged as one of the Part­ner­ship's strongest al­lies and has shown an acute ap­pre­ci­a­tion of po­lit­i­cal pow­er.

While in To­ba­go the con­test for the THA is yet to be­gin in earnest, across the wa­ters in Trinidad the po­lit­i­cal con­test en­gag­ing the at­ten­tion of some is that of the oth­er ma­jor part­ner-the COP.Win­ston Dook­er­an has done what many ex­pect­ed, as he de­clined to con­test the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader of the COP. Dook­er­an, since the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tions, ap­peared to be lean­ing to­wards re­leas­ing the reins of lead­er­ship, ap­pear­ing in­ca­pable of deal­ing with an­oth­er stint in the op­po­si­tion wilder­ness.

An ear­ly gen­er­al elec­tion, thanks to Patrick Man­ning, saved Dook­er­an from that fate but it ap­pears that since then ill health and an in­tense work­load have forced the same re­sult of Dook­er­an re­lin­quish­ing the COP lead­er­ship.Since the 2007 gen­er­al elec-tion, Prakash Ra­mad­har has been se­lect­ed as the heir ap­par­ent to Dook­er­an. Ra­mad­har act­ed for Dook­er­an when­ev­er the lat­ter left the coun­try, and has been pushed in­to the lime­light by Dook­er­an him­self. The in­tel­li­gent, soft-spo­ken, and non-con­fronta­tion­al style of Ra­mad­har ap­pealed to the typ­i­cal con­ser­v­a­tive mid­dle class COP sup­port­er.

Ra­mad­har rep­re­sents the val­ues of what the COP stands for and who the COP ap­peals too when com­pared to the oth­er con­tenders for the post-Anil Roberts, Ver­non De Li­ma and Nali­ni Di­al. For ex­am­ple, the as­ser­tion of Ra­mad­har that Mary King and Jack Warn­er be re­moved from of­fice fol­low­ing the re­spec­tive con­tro­ver­sies is in keep­ing with the COP val­ues that many of the sup­port­ers found as a rea­son to join the par­ty.The on­ly se­ri­ous chal­lenger to the Ra­mad­har camp re­mains Anil Roberts. How­ev­er, Roberts ap­pears to be ap­peal­ing to a sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion en­thused with his brava­do and bois­ter­ous­ness and who may not even be able to vote in the COP elec­tion.

There is the fear that the PNM vot­er is at­tempt­ing to sneak in­to gov­ern­ment qui­et­ly and is us­ing Roberts to that end.Many COP sup­port­ers al­so strong­ly fear that if Roberts is suc­cess­ful at the COP polls, he will take the COP in­to the UNC and the COP will be lost be­fore the next gen­er­al elec­tion.To the diehard COP sup­port­er there is no iden­ti­ty in any of the two oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Many re­flect on the UNC/NAR coali­tion where the NAR lost its iden­ti­ty in that gov­ern­ment and even­tu­al­ly the gov­ern­ment was lost. As such, the suc­cess of Ra­mad­har is seen as a ne­ces­si­ty for the Gov­ern­ment's sur­vival.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is thes­ec­re­tary gen­er­al of the­Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha