Con­flict and frag­men­ta­tion with­in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is noth­ing new, both with­in the core par­ty and in a cou­ple coali­tion arrange­ments in which the par­ty was in­volved. It is al­so true that even with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), the most co­he­sive par­ty of the pre and post-In­de­pen­dence po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence in Trinidad and To­ba­go, con­flict has arisen.

In the in­stance of the PNM, con­tention emerged when two deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, ANR Robin­son and Karl Hud­son-Phillips, at dif­fer­ent points chal­lenged their leader Dr Er­ic Williams. From that splin­ter came the Ac­tion Com­mit­tee for Ded­i­cat­ed Cit­i­zens, which even­tu­al­ly mor­phed in­to the To­ba­go-based De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress. In the oth­er ma­jor in­stance, Hud­son-Phillips broke with Dr Williams and fash­ioned the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion and lat­er the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion.

While the im­broglio be­tween Patrick Man­ning and Dr Kei­th Row­ley did not re­sult im­me­di­ate­ly in de­feat of the PNM, it even­tu­al­ly was among the rea­sons for an even­tu­al PNM loss.  

With­in the cur­rent UNC, there are very clear sig­nals that the par­ty will un­der­go a mea­sure of in­jury with the ex­pect­ed fall­out. In­deed, the UNC is the re­sult of breaks and re­for­ma­tions which go back to the 1950s to the then Peo­ple’s De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, which even­tu­al­ly led to the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty and a few frac­tions there­after, in­clu­sive of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Team Uni­ty and the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship.

There are oth­ers but the point has been made: con­flict with­in all the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties and coali­tions which have been formed over the decades has been a con­sis­tent fea­ture. While such dif­fer­ences of opin­ion have led to frac­tur­ing, re­for­ma­tions and re­for­mu­la­tions, it has not re­sult­ed in any ma­jor trans­for­ma­tion in the pol­i­tics of the par­ties. Most im­por­tant­ly, es­pe­cial­ly in the in­stance of the UNC, frag­men­ta­tion has led to the loss of elec­tions.

On this oc­ca­sion, the con­flict has arisen os­ten­si­bly about a call by four par­lia­men­tar­i­ans for the sched­ul­ing and hold­ing on a time­ly ba­sis, of par­ty in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions. And while that has forced leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to call the elec­tion, that is clear­ly not the re­al is­sue at con­tention.

Dis­en­chant­ment with her po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, her string of gen­er­al elec­tion loss­es, her po­lit­i­cal age and per­ceived in­abil­i­ty to re­fash­ion a par­ty that can win the next gen­er­al elec­tion are fears stalk­ing the UNC. They are amongst the is­sues which have led the group of four to ag­i­tate the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship. No doubt, and notwith­stand­ing the pro­fes­sion of faith in Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar by Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and oth­ers, it is cer­tain there is a mea­sure of qui­et sup­port for those who have been brave, or fool­ish enough, to have used the par­ty elec­tions is­sue to in­di­cate dis­af­fec­tion with the leader.    

Can the UNC ben­e­fit from this ear­ly in­di­ca­tion of dis­qui­et and so crit­i­cal­ly ex­am­ine it­self? Or is it im­pos­si­ble for T&T po­lit­i­cal par­ties to be suf­fi­cient­ly self-con­fi­dent and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic to con­tain mean­ing­ful dis­agree­ment with­in their struc­tures which can lead to pos­i­tive re­new­al in­stead of po­lit­i­cal bac­cha­nal and de­feat?

From the his­tor­i­cal record, it is le­git­i­mate to con­clude that the T&T par­ty sys­tem built around mes­sian­ic lead­er­ship can­not with­stand in­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal stress; and that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are frag­ile and un­able to take crit­i­cism with­out as­sign­ing “trou­ble mak­ers” to the po­lit­i­cal ceme­tery.