Max Albert and I continue our discussions on the Tobago autonomy question.
Last week, we nudged Farley Augustine on the question. This week, fairness requires that we cross the waters and nudge Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. But how shall we measure her on Tobagonian autonomy? Perhaps against Kamla herself?
For nearly 30 years, Kamla has been present at critical moments in Tobago’s constitutional journey. Few national political leaders still active today can claim such proximity to its unfinished history.
In 1996, as minister of Legal Affairs, she participated in the parliamentary debate when A.N.R. Robinson sought constitutional protection for the Tobago House of Assembly. She had already understood the distinction between political accommodation and constitutional protection. Seventeen years later, she went considerably further. In 2013, she personally introduced constitutional legislation intended to advance Tobago’s internal self-government.
Whatever its imperfections—and Tobago certainly had disagreements with it—the constitutional ambition was substantial. It contemplated Tobago law-making authority, legislative responsibilities, fiscal arrangements, and a significantly altered constitutional relationship between Tobago and Central Government.
History, however, kept moving.
In December 2024, with Kamla as Opposition Leader, the United National Congress’ 16 members present voted against the People’s National Movement government’s constitutional autonomy bill, denying it the special majority required for passage. Viewed superficially, that might appear an extraordinary position for the woman who had herself advanced Tobago’s internal self-government legislation.
But Tobago’s side of the story matters. Farley Augustine was himself urging that the legislation should not proceed in the form presented. He argued that important Tobago powers were insufficiently entrenched; that Tobago laws could remain subordinate to national laws; that the proposed maritime jurisdiction was unacceptable; and that Tobagonians had not been meaningfully consulted on the governmental structure being prescribed for them. His essential proposition was simple: it had to be about what Tobagonians wanted.
But he was not demanding abandonment of the entire exercise. He wanted the proposals improved until they reflected Tobago’s aspirations.
That distinction is important. The UNC’s votes therefore did more than defeat a PNM bill. Whatever party-political calculations accompanied them—and politics always has them in substantial measure—the practical effect was to prevent a special parliamentary majority from constitutionally entrenching an autonomy arrangement which the Chief Secretary was publicly saying Tobago should not accept.
For many Tobagonians, therefore, Kamla’s opposition was not opposition to Tobago’s autonomy. It operated as protection against Tobago being constitutionally locked into someone else’s definition of it. And perhaps that decision now creates an obligation of its own. If Kamla helped prevent Tobago from receiving what Tobago said it did not want, Kamla must now help Tobago secure what Tobago says it does. History has given her that opportunity.
Prime Minister Kamla now speaks of Tobago’s self-determination, equality and meaningful self-government. Those are powerful ideas. And so we nudge her. Not by asking her to accept Farley’s conception of autonomy merely because their present relationship appears cordial. We ask something harder. Can today’s Kamla deliver constitutional arrangements at least as courageous as those an earlier Kamla was prepared to place before Parliament?
Indeed, Tobago’s expectations have matured since 2013.
We have travelled through Act 37, Act 40, failed bills Acts 37 and 40 (failed Acts), DRC controversies, constitutional proposals, consultations and decades of argument about what autonomy actually means.
Tobago therefore cannot emerge from this process merely with a longer administrative shopping list. Law-making authority must be real. Fiscal arrangements must be defensible. Maritime authority must be meaningful. The relationship between Tobago laws and national laws must be unmistakable. And whatever is constitutionally entrenched must be capable of surviving governments less friendly to Tobago than the present one.
That last requirement is fundamental. Kamla will not always be Prime Minister. Farley will not always be Chief Secretary. UNC will not always govern Trinidad and Tobago. The Tobago People’s Party will not always command every elected seat in the Assembly.
The current friendship between the two may open the door. It must not become the foundation. Tobago is not negotiating a personal relationship between two political leaders. Tobago is negotiating the constitutional relationship between two islands for generations yet unborn. That settlement must therefore survive both Kamla and Farley.
So we are not asking Kamla to become Robinson. We are not asking her to become Farley. We are asking Kamla to remember Kamla – to remember the minister who participated when Robinson sought constitutional protection for Tobago; to remember the Prime Minister who advanced internal self-government legislation in 2013; to remember the Opposition Leader whose parliamentary votes helped prevent Tobago from being constitutionally bound to an arrangement its elected leadership said was inadequate; and now to remember the Prime Minister who has another opportunity to complete the journey.
Kamla helped Tobago say no. History has given her the opportunity to help Tobago finally say yes. But this time, Tobago must know precisely what it is saying yes to.
Prime Minister, get it right—and make it last.
Dr Winford James is a retired UWI lecturer who has been analysing issues in education, language, development and politics in T&T and the wider Caribbean on radio and TV since the 1970s. He has also written thousands of columns for all major newspapers in the country.
