Pol­i­tics is not for the faint-heart­ed. Peo­ple in pub­lic life will face dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tions and ad hominem per­son­al at­tacks. Pol­i­tics is fun­da­men­tal­ly about pow­er and the dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources and sta­tus. In the en­su­ing com­pe­ti­tion over the dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources, there will in­evitably be con­flict, even ag­gres­sion. In­deed, the lan­guage in par­lia­ment is more stri­dent, if not coars­er.

Lan­guage is a pow­er­ful tool, as it in­flu­ences thought, be­hav­iours and emo­tions. It can shape per­cep­tions, frame nar­ra­tives, and even con­trol out­comes with­out the use of force. Par­lia­ment is crit­i­cal to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, as it pro­vides a fo­rum for de­bate about key is­sues, there­by in­flu­enc­ing pub­lic sen­ti­ment. Whilst a gov­ern­ment may have a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, it does not mean that the pub­lic will sup­port every gov­ern­ment mea­sure. Hence, the need for de­bate, to frame the ar­gu­ment and present in­for­ma­tion in a way that in­flu­ences how it is in­ter­pret­ed.

De­bate al­so takes place in the pub­lic space, and politi­cians use ag­gres­sive lan­guage to gain at­ten­tion, mo­bilise sup­port­ers, or in­tim­i­date op­po­nents to achieve cer­tain ob­jec­tives. There are sev­er­al ex­am­ples of this ap­proach by the rul­ing par­ty. The first is the re­cent use of the term “pres­i­den­tial sen­a­tors,” a ref­er­ence to the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

The un­der­ly­ing in­tent of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress PRO’s me­dia con­fer­ence on June 29th, be­fore the de­bate on the Prime Min­is­ter’s Pen­sion (Amend­ment) Bill, 2025, was to ques­tion the in­tegri­ty and im­par­tial­i­ty of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, la­belling them “Pres­i­den­tial Sen­a­tors.” The PRO not­ed that the Con­sti­tu­tion did not use the term “in­de­pen­dent,” but it does not re­fer to the sen­a­tors as “Pres­i­den­tial” sen­a­tors ei­ther. With­out the sup­port of at least four sen­a­tors, the Gov­ern­ment would not have achieved the three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty re­quired for the pas­sage of the bill. The bill was passed.

In its me­dia state­ment on Ju­ly 6th, the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (LATT) said it was deeply con­cerned about what ap­peared to be un­war­rant­ed at­tacks on the in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty of the sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent. It not­ed that some in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the bill whilst oth­ers did not. The state­ment not­ed there was no “ra­tio­nal” ba­sis that those who sup­port­ed the bill were free from op­po­si­tion in­flu­ence and those who did not sup­port the bill were not.

The LATT state­ment not­ed that in any democ­ra­cy, there would be dif­fer­ent views and dif­fer­ent opin­ions and that the health of a democ­ra­cy would be de­ter­mined by how those dif­fer­ences were nav­i­gat­ed. It point­ed to a trend in the pub­lic dis­course where the in­tegri­ty and in­de­pen­dence of pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions and pub­lic fig­ures are called in­to ques­tion be­cause their opin­ions or per­spec­tives dif­fer from those of politi­cians. LATT ar­gued that the trend should be “reined in” as it was not in the na­tion­al in­ter­est, as many cit­i­zens with po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions are like­ly to be­lieve that per­sons with views dif­fer­ent to their own “are un­prin­ci­pled or lack­ing in in­de­pen­dence and in­tegri­ty.”

The at­tacks be­came fo­cused fol­low­ing the Pres­i­dent’s speech at a “Women in Lead­er­ship" event last week. Gov­ern­ment par­lia­men­tar­i­ans pub­licly ex­pressed dis­trust in the Pres­i­dent be­cause of her po­lit­i­cal past.

It is time, how­ev­er, that the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship take a more ma­ture and nu­anced ap­proach to the busi­ness of man­ag­ing the coun­try if we are to achieve a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy.