DR HAMID GHANY

As the is­sue of re­vis­it­ing the Fyz­abad Ac­cord is raised, the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment will now get an op­por­tu­ni­ty to do what they were un­able to do lead­ing up to the May 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. At that time, they were faced with the prospect of re­spond­ing to then prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning's sud­den de­ci­sion to dis­solve Par­lia­ment and hold fresh gen­er­al elec­tions just two and a half years in­to his five-year term of of­fice. The then ad­min­is­tra­tion did not present what could have been con­sid­ered an elec­tion bud­get in Sep­tem­ber 2009 and they were adamant about the prop­er­ty tax which they en­act­ed at the end of 2009, but did not im­ple­ment be­fore they left of­fice. In the lead up to the gen­er­al elec­tion, they were still try­ing to pass the high­ly un­pop­u­lar Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty Bill.

This back­drop makes the de­ci­sion to seek a dis­so­lu­tion of Par­lia­ment on April 8, 2010 a dif­fi­cult one to un­der­stand. There is a the­o­ry that Man­ning did not want the new leader of the UNC, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to set­tle down and the abil­i­ty to mend fences with Win­ston Dook­er­an and the COP to fight the PNM as unit­ed front had to be chal­lenged ear­ly. The up­shot of this is that Nom­i­na­tion Day was set for May 3, 2010 and the UNC and the COP had to agree by that date whether they would fight each oth­er or fight as a team. They both agreed on the en­try of the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) as an al­ly and the NJAC and the hasti­ly-formed MSJ were al­so in­clud­ed in the pro­posed coali­tion. Es­sen­tial­ly, they all had to ne­go­ti­ate against the clock that Man­ning had set. At that time, the strength of emo­tion for the re­moval of Man­ning was so strong that they were pre­pared to sub­merge their pre-ex­ist­ing dif­fer­ences, some of which were sub­stan­tial, in or­der to re­move the PNM from pow­er.

As a con­se­quence, they went in­to the elec­tion promis­ing the pop­u­la­tion that they would work to­geth­er as a team and that the PNM ad­ver­tis­ing that showed them fight­ing each oth­er was on­ly pro­pa­gan­da. Now the sit­u­a­tion has reached the point where the new leader of the COP, Prakash Ra­mad­har has pub­licly called for a meet­ing of the lead­ers of the Part­ner­ship. They are now go­ing to do what they were un­able to do in the rush lead­ing up to Man­ning's snap elec­tion. They are in pow­er and ap­proach­ing their sec­ond an­niver­sary this May. The idea of re­vis­it­ing the Fyz­abad Ac­cord is a good move for them be­cause it al­lows a free and frank ex­change of ideas among peo­ple who were al­lies to re­move the PNM and must now de­cide that they want to be al­lies to de­liv­er on the promis­es that they made to the elec­torate. All of the mem­bers of the coali­tion are unit­ed in their view that they have an undis­put­ed leader in the per­son of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It would ap­pear that there would be dif­fi­cul­ties if she were not the leader. That much can be said as far as uni­ty of pur­pose is con­cerned. The PNM has been re­moved from pow­er and Patrick Man­ning is no longer the leader.

In that sit­u­a­tion, the ques­tion must be asked whether they can forge a re­al bond for the fu­ture that will per­mit the ex­pect­ed in­fight­ing, how­ev­er, it is the de­gree of in­fight­ing that will de­ter­mine whether they will last long enough to de­liv­er on the promis­es made in the man­i­festo. Their first big chal­lenge will be the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions which are due this year for all po­si­tions on the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive ex­cept the po­lit­i­cal leader. With a na­tion­al elec­toral process, the way is clear for an­oth­er high pro­file in­ter­nal elec­tion cam­paign that re­sem­bles a gen­er­al elec­tion. Of course, there are no rules on cam­paign fi­nance so that the sky is the lim­it on ad­ver­tis­ing and elec­toral mo­bil­i­sa­tion. Will the UNC adopt the style of the COP for their in­ter­nal elec­tions in re­spect of reg­u­la­to­ry de­mands on the can­di­dates or will it be a free-for-all? Bas­deo Pan­day has al­ready sent the sig­nal that he will be ad­vis­ing some peo­ple who would con­sti­tute a slate of can­di­dates even though he may not call it that. There are al­so ru­mours about oth­er slates of can­di­dates.

In the midst of all of this, there is like­ly to be a re­vis­it­ng of the Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion. Does the phi­los­o­phy of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, to share pow­er with oth­ers as op­posed to keep­ing the UNC as a par­ty that will want to be dom­i­nant and hege­mon­ic by it­self, be ac­cept­ed by the rank and file of the par­ty? The Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion is based on the premise of pow­er-shar­ing. The is­sue to be raised by the COP in par­tic­u­lar is whether they are get­ting the pro­por­tion of in­flu­ence in pol­i­cy-mak­ing out of the coali­tion in re­la­tion to what they put in­to it. Oth­ers may have sim­i­lar ques­tions. Their on­ly so­lu­tion as a coali­tion is to have di­a­logue on the sub­ject of pow­er-shar­ing to which they all sub­scribe.