Speaking as if she was responding in part to my column of September 17, 2023, our brand-new President, Christine Kangaloo, in her address to the Tobago House of Assembly on September 27, 2023, revealed that she did not raise the matter of Tobagonian autonomy in her speech to the ceremonial opening of the 4th session of the 12th Parliament because she wanted first to meet with the Tobago community.
That’s respectful, and it is to her credit as Head of State. She is President of the two islands and so needs to show interest in the political, social, and economic affairs of both. All her predecessors, except Arthur N R Robinson, stayed mum on the issue of Tobagonian autonomy. The constitutional lawyer Ellis Clarke. The Chief Justice Noor Hassanali. The UWI Principal G Maxwell Richards. The former judge and prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Anthony Carmona. And the Appeals Court judge and first female president Paula-Mae Weekes. All of them maintained official silence. But not Robinson. And now, in the wee stages of her term, the former senate president Christine Kangaloo.
I am assuming that by ‘Tobago community’ she meant the political representatives of the Tobagonian electorate. The latter voted their representatives into the THA in the last elections and the biggest issue that was focused on is autonomy for Tobago. Fifteen seats were contested and the PDP won 14 (with 13 of the representatives since resigning from that party but staying in the House) while the PNM won the remaining one. By talking with the Assembly first, President Kangaloo not only did the respectful thing, but the right thing. It is in the THA elections that the issue of autonomy has been thrashed out, not the parliamentary ones.
And Tobago showed overwhelmingly by the vote that they did not want the PNM version of it.
Here are some of her words on the matter:
‘Let me assure you that the matter of autonomy for Tobago is one that I regard as absolutely critical to the proper development of our country.’
‘I believe that at this juncture of our country’s history, the signal importance of which has not escaped the Chief Secretary nor me is to fight to keep the question of Tobago’s autonomy on the national agenda and to strain every muscle in us to struggle for its achievement until it is advanced and achieved.’
Aware that words are capable of multiple interpretations as they syntactically interact with one another to express what the experience-informed mind wants to say, and impatient after so long a wait, I shall take the liberty of giving her words the most optimistic interpretation.
So we have arrived at a watershed. A new President is signalling that the time has come for the whole nation to grab the autonomy issue by the horns and seek to advance it until it is achieved. It’s got to be achieved if the country is to develop properly. No more pussyfooting. No more Government blaming of the Opposition in respect of the majorities needed in the vote for constitutional change. Accept that the Tobago people have spoken and that it is therefore up to the Parliament to give effect to our voice. This thing is not about PNM versus UNC. No, it is about a Parliament that is structurally not Tobago-friendly giving Tobago what it wants and working out with us the right formulae and arrangements that must reconstitute the law by which we want to live as a people.
The President is clearly seized of the issue and is willing to strain every muscle with us to make sure it is realised. She is going to lend the gravitas of her office to the agenda!
A lot has been written and spoken about it and a lot more is still to be written and spoken about it, but we will clarify our ideas and strategies and share them as we forge forward. Powerful ideas such as decentralisation, equality of status, and bill of rights need to be thrashed out before being adopted.
It is going to be an exciting, hair-raising, goosepimply time! Or am I in the throes of self-delusion?
Doesn’t the Constitution deny the presidency any leverage on the matter of autonomy for Tobago? Isn’t the role of Kangaloo merely to sign the law passed by the Houses of Parliament? Isn’t she a PNM president who will not, and cannot, challenge the PNM leader’s interpretation of autonomy as expressed in those two awful bills currently on the agenda of the Lower House this session? Isn’t she a bedrock member of the PNM? Doesn’t Augustine, like Rowley, know that the PNM needs the UNC to pass any Constitution-changing bill? Doesn’t he realise that he is coming across as relying on the President to do the autonomy work he is still to do since taking office?
Goodness!
Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development, and politics in Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written hundreds of columns for all the major newspapers in the country. He can be reached at jaywinster@gmail.com