Opportunity in Crisis
There is no doubt whatsoever that the nation is in a crisis of unprecedented proportions. For the first time in our history, the Afro and Indo parties are electorally gridlocked in a tie, and without Tobago being able to break the stalemate. (Indeed, Tobago ensured that there would be a gridlock by rejecting the NAR (which had failed them badly in the 17-17-2 result) to give the Afro party in Trinidad an even chance with the rampaging Indo party.)
The governmental initiative, at the behest of the President, has shifted to the Afro party, and the situation is such that the Indos are crying foul, are disturbed beyond the point of angry words, and are preparing to take to the streets, not merely for a demonstration but a fight. The shadow of ethnic violence is beginning to appear. But so many people, including our brightest among Indos and Afros, do not see the opportunity for a great and joyful change!
Panday and Manning had an opportunity to tell the President that they would adhere to the message from the electorate that power must be shared by both ethnicities and that, because the constitution did not formally allow for power-sharing but for a winner to take all, they would consult with the people - all the stakeholder communities, every single one of them - and arrive at principles and mechanisms by which to change the form and process of government so that ethnicities would share power every time hereafter and government would be driven by from below by the people in clear demographic and community configurations. They had an opportunity to provide him with an interim arrangement for power-sharing until the new constitution was worked out.
Instead, they muffed it, preferring to let him deal with it in his presidential discretion. And when he dealt with it in that kind of discretion, giving the government to Manning (and consequently to the Afros), Panday and his Indos called his action illegal and broke the agreement between themselves and Manning and his Afros that had been reached prior to the exercise of the discretion.
And now we are back to square one of the crisis. The Afros have the government but no parliament to make it work. The Indos are blocking the convening of parliament to prevent the government from working. Stalemate. The message of the result - come together and work out a constitution for power-sharing - is still waiting to be heeded.
The Indo position in all this may illogical and immoral, but it is quintessentially political. Illogical in the sense that if it is illegal to install the Afros on the basis of 18 seats, it must be also illegal to keep the Indos in power on the same basis. Immoral in the sense of agreeing one day on a set of principles and actions and on the next day violating that agreement because the decision you agreed to accept when it came did not go your way. Political in the sense that politics is about winning advantage for your (narrow) empire, not about logic or moral decency, whatever the latter may be. Panday did not perceive the passing of the mantle to Manning as being to the advantage of his ethnic empire, so what morality are you talking about?
And Manning's behaviour in appointing as ministers 1)mostly Afros, 2) his wife, 3) persons with negative baggage in his first administration, and 4) a whopping 29 ministers didn't help matters any. He drew unnecessary negative attention to himself and the Afro party, and he reminded all of us, even Panday now that the crown is on a different ethnic head, of how inequitable the winner-take-all stasis is.
The message of the elections is that we must move immediately to break that kind of stasis. The country is richer in political experience and intellectual resources to break it effectively and advantageously. But all voices, particularly those not belonging to political outfits, should be contending for this break and, in particular, calling on the leaders of political outfits to move in the direction of a focus, goal-directed national conversation.
Manning, for being prime minister, has a special responsibility to lead the process, but in taking the initiative, he's got to treat the leaders of our major ethnicities as equals. I am referring to Panday and Orville London. But given his persistent political reflexes, I am sure that we must not continue to make the mistake of leaving it up to the likes of him.
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