No future in govt for UNC without COP

One recurring issue which the PP cannot afford to ignore or be complacent about is the irreparable fracturing of the UNC/COP relationship, for the simple reason that if each goes its own way, the PP Government would most certainly cease to exist.

The UNC as an East Indian-based party may have the statistical numerical superiority over the African-based PNM, but if it is on its own, non-East Indian groups are not likely to vote for such a party, nor will the middle class, which may be averse to politics based on race or intellectually anti to a perceived UNC rurality and its associated illiteracy and backwardness, from which the PNM has benefited in the past.

The latter two groups, however, in search of a “new politics,” may have gravitated to the COP as an alternative to the UNC as well as the PNM, but by itself, as is evident from the previous elections, it seems unable to gain a seat. The danger here in the present circumstances, however, is that the COP, having separated from the UNC, may seek to be in government as is the ultimate objective of any political party, by engaging in some kind of understanding with an alternative group, in this case the PNM, or openly forming an alliance with it.

The argument that the COP will never do this is wishful thinking at best, for the appetite for power in politics has produced stranger bedfellows in the past and will do so again in the future. As for the UNC, it will most certainly revert to opposition once it splits from the COP, which makes it mandatory for it to recognise its dependence on the COP and so seek to heal its friction with it.

As observed, even as the COP still has a future in government even without the UNC, if it so chooses to form an alliance with the PNM, the UNC has no such future without the COP and to ignore this hard fact, which seems to be the case at present, is to do so at its peril.
 

Dr Errol Benjamin
Via e-mail