Tony Fras­er

The spec­u­la­tion and leaks sur­round­ing the up­com­ing se­lec­tion/elec­tion of a Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic well il­lus­trate the point pur­sued in the last cou­ple of columns, that is, the wide-rang­ing pow­ers giv­en to the Prime Min­is­ter in the 1976 Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion.

The pow­ers in­clude ef­fec­tive con­trol of the Ex­ec­u­tive and the Par­lia­ment, mak­ing non­sense of the doc­trine of the sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

Among the names list­ed as can­di­dates for the pres­i­den­cy are the cur­rent Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives and the Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate, two peo­ple who have come from the rul­ing coali­tion.

Then there is an aca­d­e­m­ic who has been en­gaged by the Gov­ern­ment in the con­sti­tu­tion re­form ex­er­cise with re­gard to To­ba­go, a for­mer chair­man of the po­lice and pub­lic ser­vice com­mis­sions and a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and po­lit­i­cal leader of the ONR, and a few oth­ers whose names must have been thrown in­to the heap to make as if it is an ex­er­cise in true democ­ra­cy–that be­ing a dis­cus­sion as to the choice among a slate of em­i­nent­ly qual­i­fied can­di­dates for the job of Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic.

With the leaks and spec­u­la­tions has come the sug­ges­tion that the present Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Wade Mark, who has been can­di­date for the dom­i­nant coali­tion part­ner, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), one-time chair­man of the par­ty and a for­mer min­is­ter in the Pan­day UNC Gov­ern­ment, is the front-run­ning can­di­date.

Whether Mark is se­lect­ed/elect­ed or not, the choice of can­di­date by the rul­ing par­ty (i.e. by the Prime Min­is­ter) will be­come the next pres­i­dent giv­en the built-in ma­jor­i­ty of the par­ty in the elec­toral col­lege–the col­lege be­ing a com­bi­na­tion of the two hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

With the Prime Min­is­ter al­ready in con­trol of the Ex­ec­u­tive and Par­lia­ment, in­flu­ence over the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic is as­sured. There will be those who would point out that Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son, al­though the choice of then Prime Min­is­ter Pan­day, proved him­self to be any­thing but pli­able.

How­ev­er, there were ma­jor dif­fer­ences: Robin­son came from a dif­fer­ent par­ty from the Prime Min­is­ter; he had a long and dis­tin­guished ca­reer in pol­i­tics in­clud­ing be­ing the prime min­is­ter and deputy prime min­is­ter; he broke with the ven­er­a­ble Dr Williams; and frankly no one, least of all Pan­day, should have thought Robin­son, even though be­ing gift­ed the high­est state of­fice, to be some­one who could have been led around by the nose.

This is not to say that Mark and Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith will be sur­ro­gates of the Prime Min­is­ter, but their po­lit­i­cal track record and cir­cum­stances of se­lec­tion/elec­tion are stark­ly dif­fer­ent from Robin­son's.

While the role of the Pres­i­dent is large­ly cer­e­mo­ni­al, dic­tat­ed by the con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment that the Pres­i­dent acts on the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net, he/she does have more than a few func­tions which re­quire that he/she acts in­de­pen­dent­ly af­ter con­sul­ta­tion and at times even with­out con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

The se­lec­tion of in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, pub­lic ser­vice com­mis­sions and, as point­ed out by Ken­neth Lal­la, SC–said to al­so be a can­di­date in the pres­i­den­tial stakes–the pow­er to refuse to sign leg­is­la­tion brought be­fore him are among in­stances of the Pres­i­dent act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly.

It is far from be­ing in­ci­den­tal that the ex­ist­ing Con­sti­tu­tion is es­sen­tial­ly the doc­u­ment of then Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams, who dis­missed the Wood­ing Con­sti­tu­tion Com­mis­sion re­port and had the present con­sti­tu­tion draft­ed in his own im­age and like­ness.

The is­sue for con­tem­pla­tion by cit­i­zens con­front­ed by the need to re­form the 1976 Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion is whether they should con­tin­ue to place such over­whelm­ing state pow­er in the hands of a Prime Min­is­ter, or should there be con­sti­tu­tion­al pro­vi­sions for checks and bal­ances and in­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er to re­strain the Prime Min­is­ter in the in­ter­est of democ­ra­cy.

Giv­en the po­larised na­ture of the so­ci­ety and the in­sti­tu­tion­al po­lit­i­cal cul­ture of par­ties mo­bil­is­ing along trib­al lines and the elec­torate in­ured to the prac­tice of vot­ing for eth­nic par­ties, the ex­pe­ri­ence has been that one half of the so­ci­ety feels dis­en­fran­chised when the oth­er tribe is in of­fice with all the pow­er in hand.

Dis­crim­i­na­tion, jobs and con­tracts, po­si­tions on state boards and cul­tur­al dom­i­nance are the cries heard by the out-group.

In this con­text, it is in­ter­est­ing that op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert now finds the elec­tion of the Pres­i­dent to be "far­ci­cal"; of course he made no such pub­lic state­ment when his par­ty was in pow­er and his leader ben­e­fit­ted from hav­ing ab­solute pow­er. It can be ex­pect­ed that mem­bers of the rul­ing coali­tion would be silent on the is­sue as "it is we time now."

The ma­jor point be­ing made by this col­umn con­tin­ues to be that the pop­u­la­tion can­not leave it up to the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torates of the par­ties to make de­ci­sions on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.

The re­ten­tion of to­tal pow­er in the hands of the Gov­ern­ment and Prime Min­is­ter, or shift­ing it to an ex­ec­u­tive Pres­i­dent, will be the fo­cus of such pro­posed re­forms.

To be con­tin­ued.