Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les 

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent 

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James says To­ba­go’s new­ly elect­ed Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment may be strong voic­es in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, but they won’t have re­al pow­er un­less they ne­go­ti­ate care­ful­ly with the rul­ing Gov­ern­ment.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, James said the pres­ence of David Thomas, who won the To­ba­go East seat for the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty, and his coun­ter­part Joel Samp­son, who won the To­ba­go West seat, isn’t enough to give To­ba­go in­flu­ence.

“There’s no coali­tion be­tween TPP and UNC (Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress),” James said. “I don’t ex­pect there to be any sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence. They will be seat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, I think, be­cause they be­long to a dif­fer­ent par­ty.”

He ex­plained that all MPs tech­ni­cal­ly have equal con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er, but re­al in­flu­ence de­pends on num­bers.

“No­body in the Par­lia­ment, ex­cept they that have a ma­jor­i­ty, has more pow­er than any­body else,” he said. “They all have the same de­gree of pow­er based on what the Con­sti­tu­tion says.”

James said that with­out a for­mal agree­ment be­tween the TPP and UNC, the two MPs will most­ly func­tion as in­di­vid­u­als.

He dis­missed con­cerns about the two not be­ing giv­en min­istries.

Re­fer­ring to for­mer MPs Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis and Ayan­na Web­ster-Roy, James said, “They were part of the PNM mono­lith. They did not ob­vi­ous­ly rep­re­sent To­ba­go, even though they were vot­ed by the two con­stituen­cies.

“How did the fact that they were min­is­ters ben­e­fit To­ba­go? Show me. I have not seen ways in which they did things from which To­ba­go ben­e­fit­ed.”

He said the sit­u­a­tion may be dif­fer­ent with Thomas and Samp­son.

“We will have two To­ba­go voic­es ac­tu­al­ly speak­ing on be­half of To­ba­go in a way that Sham­fa and Ayan­na did not,” he added.

TPP deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Faith Breb­nor said the MPs have no Cab­i­net am­bi­tions, on­ly a man­date to speak for To­ba­go.

“Their man­date is very clear, has al­ways been clear, which is to speak on be­half of To­ba­go—not nec­es­sar­i­ly speak on be­half of any par­ty or for per­son­al gain,” she said on CNC3’s Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day.

She said both men will vote in­de­pen­dent­ly in Par­lia­ment. “We are go­ing to ne­go­ti­ate on the out­side and then vote on the in­side.

“We do not want our To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West mem­bers to have the bur­den of col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in a Cab­i­net that may want to do some­thing that goes against what the peo­ple of To­ba­go elect­ed them to rep­re­sent,” she said.

Breb­nor added that there will be no ear­ly To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly elec­tions. “We plan to go down in­to the wire, which is to De­cem­ber.”

MPs need­ed for spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty

Some laws in Par­lia­ment need a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty to pass, which means at least 31 out of 41 MPs must vote in favour. The UNC has 26 seats, so they would need five more votes. 

Even if the two To­ba­go MPs from the TPP sup­port them, it still wouldn’t be enough to reach the 31 votes need­ed. 

That means the TPP’s sup­port could on­ly help if the UNC al­so gets back­ing from the op­po­si­tion.

For most reg­u­lar bills, the UNC does not need the TPP’s two votes be­cause it al­ready has a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty with 26 seats. The TPP’s sup­port would on­ly mat­ter for spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty bills.