As a le­git­i­mate cit­i­zen of Trinidad and To­ba­go and a for­mer stu­dent of Po­lit­i­cal Sci­ence, I am com­pelled to clar­i­fy once and for all the mis­nomer of West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­er­nance that we at­tribute to our lo­cal po­lit­i­cal do­main. Let me first­ly un­der­score that the de­no­ta­tive mean­ing of Prime Min­is­ter is "first among equals" and orig­i­nates from "primus in­ter pares". The Prime Min­is­ter un­der the West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­er­nance is clear­ly the pre­em­i­nent head of the gov­ern­ment, with the sole pow­er to ap­point and dis­miss Cab­i­net Min­is­ters and non-Cab­i­net Min­is­ters and to con­trol Cab­i­net's agen­da. In the Unit­ed King­dom, a reshuf­fle of cab­i­net oc­curs every year dur­ing the sum­mer. Cab­i­net Min­is­ters may be drawn from the Low­er House of Elect­ed Rep­re­sen­ta­tives or the Up­per House at the sole dis­cre­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter. It must be not­ed that dur­ing For­mer Prime Min­is­ter, Mar­garet Thatch­er's reign (1979-1990), the era be­came known as 'Prime-Min­is­te­r­i­al' Gov­ern­ment or Thatch­erism be­cause of her au­thor­i­tar­i­an lead­er­ship style and strict ad­her­ence of her sub­or­di­nates to col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

The un­spo­ken rule was dis­sent­ing voic­es and dirty linen must nev­er be aired in the pub­lic sphere. It is on pub­lic record that Iron La­dy Mar­garet Thatch­er made sev­er­al Cab­i­net changes to her Ex­ec­u­tive arm from 1979-1990. She had four Sec­re­taries of State for For­eign and Com­mon­wealth Af­fairs dur­ing her tenure-Lord Car­ring­ton, Fran­cis Pym, Ge­of­frey Howe, John Ma­jor and Dou­glas Hurd. She al­so changed Sec­re­taries of De­fense five times-Fran­cis Pym, John Nott, Michael Hes­el­tine, George Younger and Tom King. She al­so had sev­en Sec­re­taries for Trans­port-Nor­man Fowler, David How­ell, Tom King, Nicholas Ri­d­ley, John Moore, Paul Chan­non, Ce­cil Parkin­son. Most un­doubt­ed­ly, for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, fol­lowed in the same foot­steps as Mrs Thatch­er and changed the com­po­si­tion/mem­bers of his cab­i­net from 2002-2010. Many stal­warts like Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son and Fitzger­ald Hinds were sent in­to po­lit­i­cal ex­ile and de­spite be­ing dis­en­fran­chised, nev­er spoke one word of ill-will against Mr Man­ning, clear­ly in­di­cat­ing their un­der­stand­ing that you serve at the will or plea­sure of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has reshuf­fled and re­aligned her Cab­i­net and min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios re­spec­tive­ly. I find it very un­be­com­ing and fla­grant­ly dis­re­spect­ful for mem­bers of the Cab­i­net of Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar to de­nounce the Prime Min­is­ter's de­ci­sion to shift cer­tain Cab­i­net Min­is­ters. Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan would do well to be an un­der­study to Pene­lope Beck­les-Robin­son, Di­ane Seukaran or Joan Yuille-Williams who all took their evap­o­ra­tion from Cab­i­net with dig­ni­ty and in si­lence, nev­er once pub­licly de­bat­ing Mr Man­ning's ac­tions. I im­plore all mem­bers of the cur­rent regime to give Mrs Per­sad- Bisses­sar the re­spect and high re­gard she de­serves as Prime Min­is­ter. I al­so ask all politi­cians to stop claim­ing that we fol­low a West­min­ster sys­tem of gov­er­nance es­pe­cial­ly when we do so con­ve­nient­ly. I ask all politi­cians to take heed to the fol­low­ing: "Where there is dis­cord, may we bring har­mo­ny, where there is er­ror may we bring truth, where there is doubt, may we bring faith and where there is de­spair, may we bring hope. This we say dur­ing our era of " Bisses­sarism".

Kr­ish­na Ra­jban­sie

Lange Park

Ch­agua­nas