DR HAMID GHANY

As the fall­out from the failed mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against the Prime Min­is­ter be­gins to be as­sessed, it ap­pears that the PNM has be­come a vic­tim of its own mo­tion as the ma­jor sto­ry has been the at­tack on Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing. This has come about be­cause a let­ter sent by Lee Sing to his par­ty chair­man, Franklyn Khan, was leaked to the me­dia as well as the Gov­ern­ment.

This has ad­verse­ly af­fect­ed the PNM as the par­ty finds it­self in dam­age con­trol mode try­ing to avoid "call­ing the fire brigade". It ap­pears that Lee Sing's con­cerns about the in­ter­nal work­ings of his par­ty have now at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion where there is talk of a pos­si­ble at­tempt to have him re­moved as May­or of Port-of-Spain.

This is now go­ing to be­come a defin­ing mo­ment for the PNM as it seeks to clean up the wash­ing of dirty linen in pub­lic by ei­ther ap­ply­ing de­ter­gent in the Coun­cil Room of City Hall or us­ing the dry­er at Bal­isi­er House af­ter the wash­ing ma­chine there in­stead. Per­haps this episode may cause the PNM to face the is­sue of per­mit­ting dis­sent with­in its ranks in such a man­ner that may strength­en the par­ty, rather than con­tin­u­ing to hold on to the iron-fist­ed par­ty dis­ci­pline for which it has be­come renowned over the years.

The world has changed and there is lit­tle room for silent con­sent and ac­cep­tance of one view. In more re­cent times, the PNM has start­ed to show cracks from the con­tin­ued ex­pec­ta­tion that this ap­proach must be up­held at all costs. The trend to­wards open dis­sent was re­al­ly start­ed by Karl Hud­son-Phillips in the 1970s and he was round­ly pe­nalised for that.

How­ev­er, it was not un­til no less­er per­son than Dr Kei­th Row­ley him­self was dis­missed from the Man­ning Cab­i­net in 2008 did we see the PNM en­ter a zone of open pub­lic con­flict be­tween the po­lit­i­cal leader, Patrick Man­ning, and a back-bencher in the par­ty's leg­isla­tive group.

Row­ley did not suf­fer any ad­verse con­se­quences as he was re­tained as the par­ty's can­di­date for Diego Mar­tin West in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion be­cause he had a fol­low­ing in­side the par­ty too sub­stan­tial to ig­nore. The par­ty lost the gen­er­al elec­tion and Row­ley him­self be­came the leader.

Last year, when for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had his mo­tion re­lat­ing to his mat­ter be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee con­sid­ered by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives the PNM bench was di­vid­ed over an ab­sten­tion or a yes vote. There were no ad­verse con­se­quences for those who did not toe the par­ty line as in­di­cat­ed by the Chief Whip and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

Now May­or Lee Sing finds him­self be­ing chas­tised over his leaked let­ter to his par­ty chair­man and there is talk of re­moval from City Hall. Can the PNM adopt the ap­proach of hav­ing the lead­er­ship of the par­ty be­ing made pub­licly ac­count­able for its ap­proach­es and its de­ci­sions?

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship has been able to sur­vive by al­low­ing open dis­sent with­in its ranks which has be­come a strength and not a weak­ness. No one in the Part­ner­ship is cross­ing the floor and Lee Sing cer­tain­ly has not dis­played any de­sire to do so ei­ther. On the con­trary, Lee Sing's let­ter rais­es se­ri­ous in­ter­nal mat­ters for strength­en­ing the par­ty rather than weak­en­ing it.

It will be in­ter­est­ing to see whether Bal­isi­er House will give a di­rec­tive to its coun­cil­lors and al­der­men on the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion to vote Lee Sing out of of­fice for his forth­right views about par­ty busi­ness as op­posed to City Hall busi­ness. This is quite apart from the le­gal pos­si­bil­i­ty of such a move be­ing con­tem­plat­ed or un­der­tak­en.

Is the PNM ca­pa­ble of look­ing at it­self in a new light or will it be busi­ness as usu­al? The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship has had no short­age of its own sup­port­ers crit­i­cis­ing it on a wide range of pol­i­cy and po­lit­i­cal mat­ters. Many in this so­ci­ety who con­tin­ue to analyse pol­i­tics with two-par­ty lens­es con­tin­ue to miss the fact that the po­lit­i­cal cul­ture has changed.

Coali­tion pol­i­tics has be­come at­trac­tive to many as voic­es that would nev­er have seen the cor­ri­dors of pow­er are able to walk it to­day be­cause of the coali­tion method, not the sin­gle-par­ty method. What was pre­dict­ed in the PNM gen­er­al elec­tion ad­ver­tis­ing as a big "bust up" among com­pet­ing in­ter­ests has turned in­to a big tent that al­lows sep­a­rate iden­ti­ty based on hand-hold­ing as op­posed to sin­gle-em­blem tat­too­ing.

As part of the post-no con­fi­dence fall­out, the OW­TU has called up­on the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) to with­draw from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship or the OW­TU will with­draw from the MSJ. This is pre­cise­ly the kind of elas­tic ex­pres­sion that is per­mit­ted with­in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship.

The MSJ now has a choice to make. Ei­ther they lose the OW­TU as a mem­ber or the Part­ner­ship los­es the MSJ as a part­ner. There is no doubt that there is a pow­er strug­gle in­side the MSJ. Per­haps there is one in­side the PNM as well.