It is not reg­u­lar­ly prac­tised in our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture, but if there was ever a time that T&T need­ed bi­par­ti­san­ship it is now.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, the con­sul­ta­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion that are key el­e­ments of bi­par­ti­san­ship were ab­sent on Fri­day when the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (Amend­ment) Bill 2021 passed by a di­vi­sion of 21 for, 18 against in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. That mar­gin high­light­ed the ex­tent of the par­ti­san di­vide hin­der­ing na­tion­al progress.

The aim of the bill, which still faces the hur­dle of the Sen­ate, is to break the dead­lock in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly fol­low­ing elec­tions last month that end­ed in a six-six tie be­tween the PNM and the PDP.

It is a sit­u­a­tion that is cry­ing out for ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the two sides, some ef­fort to achieve con­sen­sus on the best way for­ward. How­ev­er, with nei­ther par­ty pre­pared to budge, a cri­sis per­sists that is af­fect­ing the gov­er­nance of To­ba­go at a very crit­i­cal time.

The THA im­passe isn’t the on­ly sit­u­a­tion where par­ti­san in­flex­i­bil­i­ty is hold­ing up progress. Im­por­tant an­ti-crime bills have been de­feat­ed in the Low­er House for the same rea­son.

The ex­cep­tion, just over a week ago when the Ev­i­dence (Amend­ment) Bill got unan­i­mous sup­port, came against the back­drop of pub­lic pres­sure on leg­is­la­tors fol­low­ing the kid­nap and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt.

But we can’t go on this way.

This coun­try is be­ing held back be­cause the main po­lit­i­cal par­ties in­sist on ad­her­ing to their ide­olo­gies and plat­forms even at the ex­pense of the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

The pre­vail­ing par­ti­san ran­cour is dan­ger­ous in a small is­land de­vel­op­ing state nav­i­gat­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and eco­nom­ic tur­moil.

It is not that there are any stark dif­fer­ences in out­look and pol­i­cy be­tween the two main par­ties, the PNM and the UNC. In fact, the plans and pro­grammes which suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments led by these par­ties have brought be­fore the coun­try was de­vel­oped by the pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic ser­vice. Whichev­er ad­min­is­tra­tion is in pow­er sim­ply adds its per­spec­tive to these plans.

But trib­al­ism and in­tense com­pe­ti­tion dri­ve T&T’s par­ti­san po­lar­i­sa­tion, so rep­re­sen­ta­tives on both sides of the par­lia­men­tary cham­ber, with­out ex­cep­tion, pre­fer to toe the par­ty line rather than em­brace bi­par­ti­san­ship.

It is not that our po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives do not have the ca­pac­i­ty for bi­par­ti­san­ship. In Au­gust 1999, then prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day led a team of gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion mem­bers that in­ves­ti­gat­ed prob­lems that af­fect­ed the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. The op­po­si­tion leader at that time was the late Patrick Man­ning.

That bi­par­ti­san team worked in con­junc­tion with a tech­ni­cal team and pro­duced a re­port that iden­ti­fied prob­lems with­in the po­lice ser­vice and pro­posed rec­om­men­da­tions for leg­isla­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive pol­i­cy re­form.

This led to the draft­ing of four pieces of leg­is­la­tion—The Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Bill, The Po­lice Ser­vice Bill, The Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions, and The Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Bill—which were all in­tro­duced in Par­lia­ment by April 2004.

T&T is now at a junc­ture where that lev­el of ne­go­ti­a­tion and agree­ment is called for to deal with all the prob­lems the nov­el coro­n­avirus has brought our way.

Oth­er­wise, di­vid­ed we will fall.