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Saturday, July 5, 2025

Defeated candidates as parliamentarians

by

Prof Hamid Ghany
34 days ago
20250601
Political scientist Prof Hamid Ghany

Political scientist Prof Hamid Ghany

For the 13th Re­pub­li­can Par­lia­ment, the PNM opt­ed to re­tain the Row­ley con­tra­dic­tion of the Er­ic Williams doc­trine on de­feat­ed can­di­dates be­ing ap­point­ed par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

This was one of Dr Row­ley’s sig­na­ture de­par­tures from the Williams doc­trine of no de­feat­ed can­di­dates as sen­a­tors, which had been up­held by George Cham­bers and Patrick Man­ning.

The Williams doc­trine was out­lined one week af­ter the 1976 gen­er­al elec­tion, on Mon­day, Sep­tem­ber 20, 1976, at a pub­lic meet­ing, by Williams him­self at the cor­ner of Pic­cadil­ly Street and Town Coun­cil Street in Port-of-Spain, as fol­lows:

“The elec­torate has spo­ken. I am ab­solute­ly con­vinced that it will be wrong for any par­ty or for the PNM to take a can­di­date who was de­feat­ed at the polls and put him in the Sen­ate.” (Guardian, Sep­tem­ber 21, 1976, lead sto­ry by Er­rol Pil­grim).

The Williams doc­trine on de­feat­ed can­di­dates, in gen­er­al, and de­feat­ed PNM can­di­dates in par­tic­u­lar, be­ing ap­point­ed as sen­a­tors af­ter a gen­er­al elec­tion was thus born.

This doc­trine was de­lib­er­ate­ly con­tra­dict­ed by then leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Bas­deo Pan­day, who led the ULF, to ap­point a de­feat­ed can­di­date as a sen­a­tor, name­ly promi­nent at­tor­ney Al­lan Alexan­der, who was the de­feat­ed ULF can­di­date in Point Fortin.

The Pan­day doc­trine was that de­feat­ed can­di­dates were both el­i­gi­ble and ap­pointable as sen­a­tors.

The Williams and Pan­day doc­trines co­ex­ist­ed as po­lar op­po­sites be­tween 1976 and 2015.

Af­ter Pan­day formed the UNC in 1989, he con­tin­ued to rec­om­mend de­feat­ed can­di­dates as sen­a­tors in every Par­lia­ment, whether in gov­ern­ment or in op­po­si­tion. On the oth­er hand, Patrick Man­ning re­frained from do­ing so out of re­spect for the Williams doc­trine.

In­deed, Pan­day ex­tend­ed it to the Speak­er’s chair when he nom­i­nat­ed de­feat­ed UNC can­di­dates Hec­tor Mc Clean (1995) and Dr Ru­pert Grif­fith (2001) to as­sume the of­fice of Speak­er.

All of this was part of Pan­day’s cre­ation of a po­lit­i­cal mod­el for the ULF/UNC to open­ly dis­rupt and un­der­mine the Williams mod­el of the PNM state and tra­di­tions.

This came to a head in 2000-2001 when then pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son at­tempt­ed to im­pose the Williams doc­trine on Pan­day by re­fus­ing his ad­vice to ap­point sev­en de­feat­ed UNC can­di­dates as sen­a­tors. The stand­off last­ed for 55 days be­fore Robin­son re­lent­ed, and Pan­day won.

In Sep­tem­ber 2015, the new Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, aban­doned the Williams doc­trine out­right and for the first time rec­om­mend­ed de­feat­ed PNM can­di­dates as sen­a­tors.

Clarence Ramb­harat (de­feat­ed in Ma­yaro) and Avinash Singh (de­feat­ed in Ca­roni Cen­tral) were ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary in that min­istry, re­spec­tive­ly, to­geth­er with Sen­a­tors Sara Bud­hu (de­feat­ed in Ca­roni East) and Hafeez Ali (de­feat­ed in Barataria-San Juan).

This trend was again con­tin­ued by Row­ley af­ter the Au­gust 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion when he rec­om­mend­ed Clarence Ramb­harat (de­feat­ed in Ch­agua­nas East) as Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture and Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal (de­feat­ed in St Au­gus­tine) as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Le­gal Af­fairs.

The Williams doc­trine of 1976 emerged from a lob­by for the ap­point­ment of Basil Pitt as a sen­a­tor af­ter he had been de­feat­ed in To­ba­go West by Dr Win­ston Mur­ray of the DAC.

In­deed, the Sun­day Guardian ed­i­to­r­i­al of Sep­tem­ber 19, 1976, said, in part, as fol­lows:

“We do not know what the pol­i­cy of the Gov­ern­ment is with re­gard to the nom­i­na­tion of valu­able but de­feat­ed can­di­dates to the Sen­ate, but if such a pol­i­cy can ac­com­mo­date the se­lec­tion of Mr Pitt, we should cer­tain­ly be among those who would sup­port such a de­ci­sion.”

Dr Williams de­liv­ered his ad­dress on the fol­low­ing evening in which he out­lined his re­jec­tion of the idea of ap­point­ing de­feat­ed can­di­dates as par­lia­men­tar­i­ans.

In its ed­i­to­r­i­al on Wednes­day, Sep­tem­ber 22, 1976, the Guardian changed its ini­tial po­si­tion as fol­lows:

“Dr Williams has a point; a de­feat­ed can­di­date should not be brought to Par­lia­ment by the back door. But there is lit­tle that he or the Pres­i­dent, who makes all ap­point­ments, could do, as there is no bar to Mr Al­lan Alexan­der be­com­ing an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor. The Pres­i­dent could try to dis­suade the Op­po­si­tion but the po­lit­i­cal wish­es of the Op­po­si­tion are para­mount in this mat­ter.”

Be­tween 1976 and 2015, the Williams doc­trine pre­vailed in the PNM un­til the Row­ley con­tra­dic­tion. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­tro­duced a corol­lary to the Pan­day doc­trine in 2015 when she in­clud­ed de­feat­ed can­di­dates of oth­er par­ties in coali­tion with the UNC be­ing ap­point­ed Sen­a­tors (Rodger Samuel 2015 and Phillip Alexan­der 2025) to­geth­er with de­feat­ed UNC can­di­dates.

New Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, adopt­ed the Row­ley con­tra­dic­tion of Er­ic Williams and widened the Per­sad-Bisses­sar corol­lary by ap­point­ing Faris Al-Rawi and Fos­ter Cum­mings (de­feat­ed PNM can­di­dates) to­geth­er with for­mer PDP THA can­di­date, Melanie Roberts-Radg­man, as sen­a­tors to the ex­clu­sion of any oth­er PNM To­ba­go mem­ber.

Prof Hamid Ghany is a Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.


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