The de­ci­sion by vet­er­an politi­cian Rawle Raphael and the ex­ec­u­tive of the Lopi-not/Bon Air West con­stituen­cy of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple to re­sign and head to­wards as­sim­i­la­tion with­in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress is a sign of fur­ther de­cline in the par­ty which tout­ed "new pol­i­tics." At the same time the ev­i­dence of the UNC's all-dom­i­nat­ing pow­er with­in the coali­tion must make po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts won­der if the PP can con­tin­ue to be re­ferred to as a "coali­tion." The back and forth be­tween the UNC and the COP over the Mar­lene Coudray may­or­ship is one thing; but this whole­sale de­par­ture of a con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive has the po­ten­tial to leave the COP fur­ther with­out po­lit­i­cal clothes and naked in the wind as the UNC takes com­plete con­trol.

The ques­tion is: could the with­draw­al of the for­mer COP ex­ec­u­tive in that cru­cial Lopinot/Bon Air West seat be a pat­tern for ex­ec­u­tives in oth­er COP-held con­stituen­cies? Oth­er COP mem­bers may now be­lieve that the COP ship will ul­ti­mate­ly sink so they may as well take up their po­lit­i­cal bun­dle and leave. If the fall­out hap­pens over an­oth­er cou­ple of con­stituen­cies that will sure­ly be the end of the am­bi­tion of "new pol­i­tics," con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and the many oth­er pro­gres­sive man­i­festo pro­pos­als which are said to have been draft­ed by the COP. Iron­i­cal­ly enough, the de­par­ture of the Lopinot/Bon Air ex­ec­u­tive is said to have been in part due to the de­sire of the ex­ec­u­tive to bring about a COP pro­pos­al on the right of con­stituents to re­call a non-per­form­ing MP. Be­yond the specifics of con­flict over one pol­i­cy or the oth­er, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of un­stop­pable de­cline in the COP set­ting in will come as a ma­jor dis­ap­point­ment for those who had hoped for a trans­for­ma­tion in the pol­i­tics.

There have been sev­er­al at­tempts over the last two decades to bring el­e­ments of the body politic that are not sup­port­ive of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment in­to work­ing and last­ing re­la­tion­ships. Such groups may now con­clude that is an im­pos­si­ble goal. Tri­umphant UNC mem­bers may very well in­ter­pret what has hap­pened and what could hap­pen else­where as a plus for their par­ty. They must be rel­ish­ing the thought of an all-dom­i­nat­ing UNC prepar­ing for the next gen­er­al elec­tion; per­haps not even con­cern­ing it­self with whether or not the UNC will con­tin­ue to have the sup­port of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple. How­ev­er, the present as­cen­dan­cy of the UNC could turn out to be a pyrrhic vic­to­ry, as el­e­ments of the sup­port base of the COP be­gin to re­coil from the prospect of a UNC gov­ern­ment with­out the re­strain­ing prin­ci­ples and in­sti­tu­tion­al struc­tures which the COP has at­tempt­ed to bring to the coali­tion group­ing.

Mean­while, look­ing on are those who were not true sup­port­ers of ei­ther the UNC or the COP, but felt there was a pos­si­bil­i­ty that the coali­tion could bring mean­ing­ful change from the straight UNC vs PNM pol­i­tics of the past.

That el­e­ment of the elec­torate must sure-ly be won­der­ing whether an­oth­er ex­per­i­ment in bring­ing ri­val po­lit­i­cal com­mu­ni- ties to­geth­er in the na­tion­al in­ter­est has worked. Such dis­ap­point­ed ac­tivists and vot­ers may with­draw once more, per­haps per­ma­nent­ly, from par­ty pol­i­tics. If that were to hap­pen it would be sad for the coun­try as the skills, en­er­gy and, per­haps most im­por­tant­ly, de­sire for mean­ing­ful co-op­er­a­tion of all the tribes could dis­si­pate and be lost for an­oth­er gen­era-tion.