Sat Ma­haraj

Part 2

In 1971 His Ex­cel­len­cy Sir El­lis Clarke, Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al (as he then was), ap­point­ed a com­mis­sion of en­quiry head­ed by the Chief Jus­tice Sir Hugh Wood­ing, TC, to con­sid­er the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T and mat­ters re­lat­ed there­to. They were to make rec­om­men­da­tions for the re­vi­sion of the Con­sti­tu­tion and for mat­ters of con­sti­tu­tion re­form in T&T.

The Wood­ing Com­mis­sion, in its re­port dat­ed Jan­u­ary 22, 1974, not­ed that, "In re­al­i­ty the West­min­ster po­lit­i­cal sys­tem has a propen­si­ty to be­come trans­formed in­to dic­ta­tor­ship when trans­plant­ed in so­ci­eties with­out po­lit­i­cal cul­tures which sup­port its op­er­a­tive con­ven­tions.The prin­ci­ple un­der­ly­ing the West­min­ster sys­tem is that the par­ty which con­trols the ma­jor­i­ty in par­lia­ment fol­low­ing an elec­tion is in­vit­ed to form the Gov­ern­ment."

The com­mis­sion fur­ther found that there was vot­ing along racial lines."The DLP won ten seats...all in ar­eas where In­di­ans com­prised more than 50 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion. The PNM won 20, two in To­ba­go where the pop­u­la­tion is al­most ex­clu­sive­ly African, ten in con­stituen­cies with more than 50 per cent African, five in ar­eas where the African vote was slight­ly larg­er than the In­di­an, and two in com­mu­ni­ties where the two groups were nu­mer­i­cal­ly al­most equal."

Thttp://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers