Whilst the Pres­i­dent is seen by many cit­i­zens as a cer­e­mo­ni­al fig­ure, this view is in­ac­cu­rate. The Pres­i­dent is the Head of State, Com­man­der in Chief of the armed forces, and all ex­ec­u­tive au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go is vest­ed in the Pres­i­dent. The Of­fice is re­spon­si­ble for the ap­point­ment of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, all min­is­ters, sen­a­tors (in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors at the plea­sure of the of­fice­hold­er), per­ma­nent sec­re­taries, and many key po­si­tions with­out which the ap­pa­ra­tus of State would be­come dys­func­tion­al.

The Pres­i­dent re­ceives all Cab­i­net notes and min­utes and is meant to hold reg­u­lar meet­ings with the prime min­is­ter to be briefed.

Since the Pres­i­dent is a crea­ture of statute, the of­fice­hold­er can on­ly ex­er­cise those pow­ers vest­ed in the of­fice in ac­cor­dance with the statu­to­ry pro­vi­sions. Whilst there may be lim­it­ed room for the ex­er­cise of pres­i­den­tial dis­cre­tion, and the op­por­tu­ni­ties to do so may arise in­fre­quent­ly, the po­si­tion ought not to be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed. We re­call Pres­i­dent ANR Robin­son’s de­ci­sion to ap­point Patrick Man­ning as prime min­is­ter when the UNC and the PNM were dead­locked, 18-18, in the 2001 elec­tion.

The elec­tion of a new pres­i­dent will take place this week. It is a pro­ce­dur­al mat­ter of grav­i­tas. It ought to be a con­sen­sus-build­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty where­in all po­lit­i­cal par­ties agree on the nom­i­nee and by im­pli­ca­tion, ac­cept the au­thor­i­ty of the can­di­date with­out reser­va­tion. This elec­tion is dif­fer­ent as it is the first time in more than two decades that a pres­i­den­tial elec­tion will take place with­out a con­sen­sus can­di­date.

The com­po­si­tion of the elec­toral col­lege gives the sit­ting ad­min­is­tra­tion an ad­van­tage in the vot­ing process and vir­tu­al­ly guar­an­tees that the Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, will be elect­ed and the Op­po­si­tion’s can­di­date, Is­rael Khan de­feat­ed. The Op­po­si­tion has de­clined to en­dorse Ms Kan­ga­loo’s can­di­da­cy on the grounds that she was an ac­tive mem­ber of the gov­ern­ment par­ty and there­fore could be viewed as bi­ased in her de­ci­sion-mak­ing. This ar­gu­ment could al­so ap­ply to Mr Khan hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed the Op­po­si­tion Leader in cer­tain le­gal pro­ceed­ings.

It is note­wor­thy that noth­ing has been said to in­di­cate that ei­ther can­di­date is un­suit­able in terms of qual­i­fi­ca­tions and acu­men. Ms Kan­ga­loo may have an edge hav­ing act­ed in the po­si­tion many times whilst Pres­i­dent of the Sen­ate. Fur­ther, there is noth­ing to sug­gest that ei­ther Ms Kan­ga­loo or Mr Khan would not be im­par­tial once in of­fice. It is un­for­tu­nate that ex­pe­ri­enced par­lia­men­tar­i­ans have made loose state­ments based on con­jec­ture and spec­u­la­tion, there­by im­pugn­ing the char­ac­ter of these em­i­nent­ly qual­i­fied can­di­dates.

What is dis­turb­ing is the un­seem­ly po­lit­i­cal ut­ter­ances of sea­soned par­lia­men­tar­i­ans about “de­clar­ing war” and the equal­ly petu­lant re­spons­es which threat­en to di­min­ish the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent. Both the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader should learn from the ex­am­ple pro­vid­ed by Bar­ba­dos. One is re­mind­ed of the late David Thomp­son’s ar­gu­ments, then op­po­si­tion leader in Bar­ba­dos in 2001, against the ap­point­ment of Sir David Sim­mons to the po­si­tion of Chief Jus­tice af­ter step­ping down as at­tor­ney gen­er­al and min­is­ter of home af­fairs. How­ev­er, once Sir David be­came Chief Jus­tice, the ar­gu­ments ceased to avoid di­min­ish­ing the of­fice of Chief Jus­tice. This is an ex­am­ple that both T&T par­ties would do well to em­u­late.