The fer­vent loy­al­ty to par­ty and leader which over­rides con­cerns for good gov­er­nance, the wel­fare of the ma­jor­i­ty, and in­tegri­ty and prin­ci­ple in pub­lic life is nei­ther a new phe­nom­e­non in Trinidad and To­ba­go nor is it con­fined to any one par­ty, as seems to be sug­gest­ed by one Si­mon Wright.

In a re­cent let­ter to the press, he states:

“There is a dan­ger­ous and grow­ing mind­set in Trinidad and To­ba­go—one where po­lit­i­cal loy­al­ty has be­gun to out­weigh na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

As re­gards UNC sup­port­ers (or a ma­jor­i­ty of them), he notes:

“It’s the idea that if you sup­port­ed the UNC to gain pow­er, you must now sup­port every­thing it does with­out ques­tion, with­out dis­sent, with­out in­de­pen­dent thought. To re­ject or even ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions is to be brand­ed a trai­tor, a cow­ard, or worse.”

A sim­i­lar ob­ser­va­tion could be made about the PNM—its lead­er­ship and its ma­jor­i­ty fol­low­ing.

In an en­vi­ron­ment in which tena­cious par­ty loy­al­ty is pre­sumed to be a para­mount virtue, dis­sent, how­ev­er jus­ti­fi­able, is a grave and per­ilous un­der­tak­ing, car­ry­ing the prospect of vil­i­fi­ca­tion, de­ri­sion, and os­tracism. I my­self have been the sub­ject of in­vec­tive and ridicule from the UNC lead­er­ship and base, both past and present.

Read­ers will re­call that three of us—Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, Ralph Maraj, and my­self—raised is­sues about the di­rec­tion of the par­ty and gov­ern­ment; pref­er­ence and pa­tron­age ac­cord­ed to favoured mem­bers of the “par­a­sitic oli­garchy”; the con­do­na­tion of cor­rup­tion in the Pi­ar­co Air­port ter­mi­nal project (many of those in­dict­ed have been found guilty and have served time and paid fines, while oth­ers have ap­peals pend­ing); and the vi­o­la­tion of law and sound in­sur­ance prin­ci­ples with re­spect to the op­er­a­tions of Cli­co.

Cli­co and its par­ent com­pa­ny, CL Fi­nan­cial, floun­dered in 2009 and had to be bailed out by the Gov­ern­ment. The find­ings of the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry in­to the col­lapse of Cli­co were sent to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to pos­si­ble crim­i­nal mis­con­duct.

The then leader, Bas­deo Pan­day, was con­temp­tu­ous and dis­mis­sive of our con­cerns and re­fused to have di­a­logue. Mat­ters came to a head in 2001 with our dis­missal from the Gov­ern­ment. At the con­tin­ued in­sis­tence of Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, and against my bet­ter judg­ment, I par­tic­i­pat­ed in a meet­ing he had arranged with then Op­po­si­tion Leader Patrick Man­ning. Sub­se­quent­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day called an elec­tion for which there was no ne­ces­si­ty.

Af­ter the elec­tion out­come stale­mate of 18–18 seats, and amid con­tro­ver­sy re­gard­ing the ap­point­ment of Prime Min­is­ter, the in­cum­bent Mr Pan­day met with Mr Patrick Man­ning at the Crowne Plaza Ho­tel in Port of Spain and agreed that then Pres­i­dent ANR. Robin­son would se­lect the Prime Min­is­ter. Mr Robin­son se­lect­ed Patrick Man­ning—and the rest is his­to­ry.

It re­mains a mat­ter of spec­u­la­tion whether Mr Pan­day’s in­ju­di­cious ac­tions were re­spon­si­ble for his ouster as Prime Min­is­ter and for the UNC’s re­moval from gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, the three of us have been ve­he­ment­ly ac­cused by the UNC lead­er­ship and fol­low­ers of “bring­ing down the Gov­ern­ment.” That nar­ra­tive has en­dured tena­cious­ly for over two decades.

On­ly a few weeks ago, I was in a restau­rant in Debe when a se­nior mem­ber of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church in Pe­nal was over­heard telling a din­ing com­pan­ion, “Look at that dog Su­dama. He bring down Gov­ern­ment and no­body want to see him. His name is mud.” In the same breath, Ralph Maraj was praised as a bril­liant man for his columns in the press at­tack­ing the PNM and for his ap­point­ment. His part in “bring­ing down Gov­ern­ment” was ap­par­ent­ly ex­on­er­at­ed.

I have viewed these at­tacks on me with equa­nim­i­ty. My po­si­tion is that when you en­ter pol­i­tics, you must be pre­pared for such vi­cious re­ac­tions. Mind­less par­ti­san loy­al­ty will al­ways be with us—it is par for the course.

It is im­ma­te­r­i­al to me whether I am at­tacked, con­demned, or os­tracised. I be­lieve that I have done my du­ty ac­cord­ing to the oath which I took: to do right to all man­ner of men with­out fear or favour, af­fec­tion or ill will. I do not re­gret rais­ing the is­sues that I did—ex­cept for be­ing per­suad­ed to meet with Man­ning. I re­main on the out­side and have main­tained my ob­jec­tiv­i­ty, in­tegri­ty, in­de­pen­dence of thought, and ca­pac­i­ty to speak truth to pow­er.

I may men­tion that of the three of us who were dis­missed in 2001 and ac­cused of bring­ing down the Gov­ern­ment, I—a found­ing and foun­da­tion mem­ber of the UNC—am the on­ly one to be the sub­ject of dis­favour and ex­clu­sion. Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj was re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed by Pan­day and giv­en the Tabaquite seat in 2007. Ralph Maraj has now been made a se­nior ad­vis­er (am­bas­sador) on for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs by Kam­la.

I have al­so not­ed that a vo­cif­er­ous op­po­nent of the UNC in its ear­ly years is now its leader. Cur­rent­ly, a host of erst­while of­fice-hold­ers and sym­pa­this­ers with PNM gov­ern­ments of the past are now in the front line of a UNC gov­ern­ment.

I have come to terms with the fact that pol­i­tics, like life, is filled with point­ed ironies and glar­ing con­tra­dic­tions.

Trevor Su­dama is a for­mer MP and min­is­ter in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment.