Dur­ing a phone call with Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, where I was ad­dress­ing him in his ca­pac­i­ty as CEO of ADM, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment May­or of Ari­ma brought up the re­cent is­sue of a pho­to cir­cu­lat­ing on so­cial me­dia from a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Christ­mas fundrais­er event.

Phillip Alexan­der, a UNC sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing, ap­proached May­or Ma­haraj and re­quest­ed that a pic­ture be tak­en. This pic­ture cir­cu­lat­ed on cer­tain so­cial me­dia plat­forms and re­sult­ed in neg­a­tive com­ments from some peo­ple.

In re­sponse, May­or Bal­li­ram had this to say, “The tit for tat has to stop. Every creed finds an equal place. Mem­bers of the PNM and UNC can main­tain the mem­ber­ship of their par­ties, but can in­ter­act with one an­oth­er.

“I, Mr Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj, have now start­ed the move­ment of mak­ing T&T a na­tion of uni­ty. We should en­joy go­ing to par­ties and wed­dings with one an­oth­er. We have to mix the cul­tures with sports, with pol­i­tics. You could be a bet­ter PNM, but you could al­so en­joy your­self with oth­er peo­ple. In­side our hous­es, the Mon­tano broth­ers, Gillette broth­ers were at each par­ty, but every Sun­day they eat­ing to­geth­er. It’s time we un­der­stand we have to build a na­tion af­ter 63 years. Like Amer­i­ca, some are Re­pub­li­can, some are De­mo­c­rat, but they have a choice. I will nev­er stop some­body from mak­ing their po­lit­i­cal choice.”

I reached out to Phillip Alexan­der for a com­ment, and he gave a state­ment on the mat­ter.

“It’s in­cred­i­ble that the PNM would take some­thing as hum­ble as two per­sons from com­pet­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ties shar­ing a mo­ment. It’s in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try that the peo­ple in lead­er­ship are seen to be at least will­ing to talk be­cause con­sen­sus is go­ing to dri­ve the way for­ward. And I think that the at­tacks on the may­or for be­ing present at a fundrais­ing event for the Prime Min­is­ter, I think that is very pet­ty.

“And cer­tain per­sons in the PNM need to re­think how they po­si­tion them­selves be­cause that neg­a­tive pos­ture is not work­ing for them. They’re sink­ing low­er. The con­stant pet­ty at­tacks, look­ing for things to snipe at, the brief con­ver­sa­tions I had with the may­or of Ari­ma at that event were all in the best in­ter­est of T&T.

“And I think that we now all have to adopt that as our per­son­al pos­ture, and to piv­ot to­day, that Trinidad and To­ba­go must come first. If not, then what is the point of us be­ing in pol­i­tics?”

As a stu­dent of his­to­ry, I would like to re­mind read­ers about the im­por­tance of bi­par­ti­san pol­i­tics and na­tion­al uni­ty, draw­ing from the ex­am­ple of South Africa and the Gov­ern­ment of Na­tion­al Uni­ty formed un­der Nel­son Man­dela in 1994.

The Gov­ern­ment of Na­tion­al Uni­ty (GNU) in South Africa, es­tab­lished af­ter the coun­try’s first de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tions in April 1994, se­cured the peace­ful tran­si­tion from apartheid to con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy. It was cre­at­ed un­der the 1993 In­ter­im Con­sti­tu­tion to en­sure sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing a high­ly sen­si­tive pe­ri­od marked by deep racial di­vi­sions, eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty, and the risk of wide­spread vi­o­lence.

The GNU re­quired that any po­lit­i­cal par­ty re­ceiv­ing more than five per cent of the na­tion­al vote be in­clud­ed in the ex­ec­u­tive.

As a re­sult, the African Na­tion­al Con­gress, the Na­tion­al Par­ty, and the Inkatha Free­dom Par­ty shared pow­er. Man­dela be­came pres­i­dent, with FW de Klerk and Thabo Mbe­ki serv­ing as deputy pres­i­dents. This arrange­ment sym­bol­ised rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and re­as­sured mi­nor­i­ty com­mu­ni­ties that the tran­si­tion would not re­sult in po­lit­i­cal ex­clu­sion or ret­ri­bu­tion.

The GNU fa­cil­i­tat­ed co­op­er­a­tion on na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties, in­clud­ing draft­ing the fi­nal con­sti­tu­tion, rein­te­grat­ing South Africa in­to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, re­form­ing state in­sti­tu­tions, and sta­bil­is­ing the econ­o­my. While ten­sions per­sist­ed, the GNU suc­ceed­ed in its pri­ma­ry pur­pose: pre­vent­ing state col­lapse and le­git­imis­ing the new de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­der post-apartheid.

Al­though it end­ed in 1996, the GNU re­mains a defin­ing ex­am­ple of prag­mat­ic pow­er-shar­ing de­spite South Africa’s bloody his­to­ry of racial ten­sions.

De­spite the Na­tion­al Par­ty hav­ing been re­spon­si­ble for the es­tab­lish­ment of apartheid and be­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Afrikan­er (Dutch Eu­ro­pean) mi­nor­i­ty, their in­ter­ests were in­clud­ed in the uni­ty gov­ern­ment.

The fol­low­ing quotes give con­text to Nel­son Man­dela’s uni­ty gov­ern­ment:

“We en­ter in­to a covenant that we shall build the so­ci­ety in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, with­out any fear in their hearts, as­sured of their in­alien­able right to hu­man dig­ni­ty—a rain­bow na­tion at peace with it­self and the world.

“We were ex­pect­ed to de­stroy one an­oth­er and our­selves col­lec­tive­ly in the worst racial con­fla­gra­tion. In­stead, we as a peo­ple chose the path of ne­go­ti­a­tion, com­pro­mise and peace­ful set­tle­ment. In­stead of ha­tred and re­venge, we chose rec­on­cil­i­a­tion and na­tion-build­ing.”

T&T would do well to learn from the Ari­ma May­or’s at­tempts at bi­par­ti­san­ship with Sen­a­tor Alexan­der. This is be­cause in or­der to serve cit­i­zens on the ground, PNM rep­re­sen­ta­tives have to work with the UNC Gov­ern­ment to ef­fi­cient­ly de­ploy ser­vices where they are need­ed.