The scramble to spin the results of Monday's Local Government Elections into something other than what it was–a large collective steups from the electorate–makes Elizabeth Cadiz Topp and Alex de Verteuil's short documentary, The Honourable, most timely and instructive.
The Honourable is a half-hour interview with Stephen Cadiz, a minister on the last government, and former MP for Chaguanas East, intercut with footage of elections campaigns, speeches, and newspaper clips. It's a disarmingly low-key guided tour of the shallows of political perversity led by an affable Virgil, in Cadiz. The production and its message are not without complications, as the interviewer is Cadiz's sister, but more on that later.
Cadiz faces the camera and posterity with humility and irony. He entered politics, he says, because it was a chance to help and make a difference in the lives of ordinary people he could not turn down. Before he sought office, he had formed the Keith Noel 136 Committee, a pressure group to force the then government to act on crime. It took its name from an employee of his who had been murdered.
In his tenure in the Cabinet, Cadiz was in charge of three ministries: Transport, Tourism, and Trade. He was also in the centre of at least one debacle: the Motor Vehicle Authority Bill, which was brought to Parliament with disastrous results (he says), because it was legally flawed. He took one for the team for that, but it wasn't the only time he fell prey to the arrows of political fortune.
Cadiz recounts that being in government did not mean one automatically had access to the government's resources. To get work done in his constituency, he says, he had to lobby his ministerial colleagues, often with little success as, surprise surprise, being on the same team didn't necessarily mean being on the same side. There was a lot of infighting and jockeying in the PP, which was visible to even the casual outside observer.
Cadiz also fell victim to the personal dangers of political life, like attacks on his family–a clip was shown of a story reporting his wife had received government contracts. The story was written by Irene Medina, who worked in the newspaper (TNT Mirror) then published by the now Minister of Communication, Maxie Cuffie. Cadiz said his wife was voluntarily attempting to establish libraries in schools in his constituency of Chaguanas East. Since then, no evidence has been produced to show otherwise.
This cost mulcted by his political life was high in personal terms. Cadiz recounts his wife being visited by a friend who had heard the story, to be confronted with the dirt of political life. He recounts being offered bribes on two separate occasions in return for "special consideration" on awarding contracts. He does not reveal who offered them. There were even existential crises as he was told in no uncertain terms that if he did not support death penalty legislation (to which he is opposed) it was the end for him. He went along.
This is one of those tales that can only end one way, and as expected, the end came ingloriously, with a phone call one night from the now Opposition Leader. She told him he was not selected to re-contest his seat, which is now occupied by that titan of integrity and intellect, Dr Bhoe Tewarie.
This is just a pr�cis, there's much more in there, and Cadiz's telling of his tale is engaging and invites sympathy. You get the impression this is a decent man who took what he thought was an opportunity to help and was served a noxious dose of reality for his trouble.
Of course, sympathizing with him is not without complications. The format of a video documentary allows much more latitude than was taken. Many more racy and penetrating moments, much more probing into the nature of the Cabinet dysfunctionality, and many more questions about the corruption scandals which dogged the PP from early on were possible, but not realised.
You get the feeling that if the interviewer were someone other than the Cadiz's sister, more might have been elicited. But more might have been lost. As Elizabeth Cadiz Topp notes, this conversation was one of many she's had with her brother about politics and his political life. He was clearly comfortable and trusted her, which added value which might not have been there otherwise. If you nurtured the idea that decent people might have a role to play in the political process, Cadiz's experience puts that little fantasy to rest.
It leads to the question: if decency is not a requirement what is? Given all the visible coprophilia inherent in the political process, one wonders about the personalities who not only aspire to, but thrive in those offices.
Brief glimpses of the last couple of weeks would show a Minister of Communication who published the TNT Mirror, a former press freedom hero, announcing blithely there would be no post-Cabinet press conference because the government was busy. Two former disgraced UNC ministers (Chandresh Sharma and Glenn Ramadharsingh) offered themselves again for local government seats. Trevor Sudama, who betrayed his constituency by handing over his seat to the PNM in 2000, and plunging the country into chaos from which we still haven't recovered, persists in offering moronic advice, predictions, and glowing references to his own integrity.
You're tempted to ask where to these people come from, and why won't they go back there. Here's a good answer to those questions. The Honourable was shown at the last film festival. The DVD is for sale, and it will be placed on YouTube for a two weeks from today.