Vi­jay Ma­haraj

The British Con­sti­tu­tion evolved over cen­turies of bloody con­tests for pow­er be­tween the King and the Lords, on the one hand, and the pow­er­less mass­es strug­gling for lib­er­ty, on the oth­er. There were is­sues of Scot­tish, Welsh, and Irish na­tion­al­i­ty, and there were al­so is­sues of Catholic and Jew­ish dis­abil­i­ty.

We in T&T have a dif­fer­ent his­to­ry. We need a Con­sti­tu­tion with lo­cal in­spi­ra­tion, not the West­min­ster mod­el. Our Con­sti­tu­tion must re­flect the ne­ces­si­ty for pow­er-shar­ing be­tween all our eth­nic groups, not dom­i­na­tion by one group. Eth­nic dom­i­na­tion can­not work in this coun­try. We must have na­tion­al uni­ty en­shrined in the Con­sti­tu­tion. De­spite the claims of ‘in­clu­sion’ of Africans, the UNC re­mains chiefly sup­port­ed by In­di­ans. De­spite boasts by the PNM ‘see­ing In­di­ans in the crowd,’ the PNM re­mains es­sen­tial­ly sup­port­ed by Africans. De­spite the non-racial talk on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form, the pop­u­la­tion es­sen­tial­ly vot­ed along the lines of the racial de­mo­graph­ics of the na­tion. In the mar­gin­al seats where the tribes were bal­anced, the bat­tle was won by which tribe could mo­bilise the most.

Any ‘agree­ment’ bro­kered by po­lit­i­cal par­ties will not be a panacea for the na­tion’s eth­nic elec­toral grid­lock. If even there was an­oth­er gen­er­al elec­tion with a clean vot­er list from the EBC, the eth­nic call would still be com­pelling, and the re­sult would be pre­dictably just as close. The re­sult will be that way, chiefly be­cause of the West­min­ster sys­tem of par­lia­men­tary democ­ra­cy that de­fines our elec­toral process.

The new Con­sti­tu­tion must in­clude the fol­low­ing to break out of this racial and elec­toral grid­lock: A fun­da­men­tal change in the Con­sti­tu­tion and elec­toral process is ur­gent­ly re­quired. These changes have to in­clude a move­ment away from the first-past-the-post elec­toral sys­tem to:

• A sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion com­bined with a first-past-the-post rep­re­sen­ta­tive.

• A two-term lim­it on the Prime Min­is­ter and gov­ern­ment min­is­ters, con­stituen­cies, with an even num­ber of elec­tors in each, in­clud­ing the con­stituen­cies in To­ba­go.

• An elect­ed, ex­pand­ed, and ef­fec­tive Sen­ate com­bined with nom­i­nat­ed sen­a­tors.

• Pres­i­den­tial ap­point­ment of the Speak­er or an elect­ed Speak­er by the pop­u­la­tion.

• No cast­ing vote by the Speak­er.

• An in­de­pen­dent At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s of­fice.

• An EBC with com­mis­sion­ers from the ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties and in­de­pen­dent peo­ple.

• Cam­paign fi­nanc­ing poli­cies. Some state fund­ing for po­lit­i­cal par­ties must be made avail­able.

• Re-or­gan­i­sa­tion and ex­pan­sion of the bound­aries so that they are not bi­ased eth­ni­cal­ly. Con­stituen­cies must be ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly and nat­u­ral­ly formed.

• Ex­pand­ed Low­er and Up­per hous­es of Par­lia­ment.

• Par­lia­men­tary Over­sight Com­mit­tee to ap­prove the ap­point­ment of min­is­ters and state boards.

• All cap­i­tal ex­pen­di­tures are to be ap­proved by Par­lia­ment.

• THA Chief Sec­re­tary to be a non-vot­ing sit­ting mem­ber of the House.

• A clear­er sep­a­ra­tion be­tween the leg­isla­tive and ex­ec­u­tive 

• The Chief Jus­tice is to be ap­point­ed by a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty. Funds are to be al­lo­cat­ed in­de­pen­dent­ly of the gov­ern­ment. 

• An in­de­pen­dent ju­di­cia­ry with in­creased pow­ers and fi­nances for the Chief Jus­tice to ad­min­is­ter the op­er­a­tions of the courts.

• A DPP that is ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent with an in­de­pen­dent bud­get.

• An EBC that is al­lo­cat­ed with in­de­pen­dent bud­gets. Com­mis­sion­ers in­clude mem­bers of po­lit­i­cal par­ties that ob­tained over 25 per cent of the votes in the pre­vi­ous elec­tions.

• Pro­vi­sion for a ‘run-off’ elec­tion should there be a hung Par­lia­ment.

Con­clu­sion: The ma­jor change has to be a fun­da­men­tal shift away from the West­min­ster sys­tem to the sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion (PR). There are over 40 na­tions that now em­ploy PR to se­lect their gov­ern­ments, out, of the 56 in the British Com­mon­wealth, in­clud­ing South Africa. This is com­pared to a few na­tions that still cling to the West­min­ster mod­el. Elec­tions in T&T are based on the win­ner-take-all prin­ci­ple: vot­ers for the can­di­date who re­ceives the most votes win rep­re­sen­ta­tion; vot­ers for the oth­er can­di­dates win noth­ing. This sys­tem is un­just and un­nec­es­sary. It is un­just be­cause it leaves mi­nori­ties un­rep­re­sent­ed, with a re­sult­ing im­pact on ma­jor­i­ty rule as well as fair rep­re­sen­ta­tion. It is un­nec­es­sary be­cause we have op­por­tu­ni­ties at lo­cal, state, and na­tion­al lev­els to join the vast ma­jor­i­ty of ma­ture democ­ra­cies that have al­ready adopt­ed sys­tems of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion is based on the prin­ci­ple that any group of like-mind­ed vot­ers should win leg­isla­tive seats in pro­por­tion to their share of the pop­u­lar vote. Where­as the win­ner-take-all prin­ci­ple awards 100 per cent of the rep­re­sen­ta­tion to a 50.1 per cent ma­jor­i­ty, PR al­lows vot­ers in a mi­nor­i­ty to win their fair share of rep­re­sen­ta­tion. There is a broad range of PR sys­tems. Some are based on vot­ing for po­lit­i­cal par­ties, and oth­ers for can­di­dates. Some al­low very small group­ings of vot­ers to win seats; oth­ers re­quire high­er thresh­olds.