Amazing Political Scenes
In the political impasse between Ramesh Maharaj and Basdeo Panday in this ill-fated second UNC term, it was amazing, for me, that Ramesh Maharaj initially tried to behave as if there was no real problem between himself and his political leader even as Panday continued to make grievous remarks aimed at him and took away some of his tasks.
All that was happening, he would have us believe, was that there were differences of opinion in the family. And yet, Panday was telling us, without directly calling names, aware that the context would make his meaning clear, that he was a jackass and a Judas. And, in any case, Maharaj seemed not to realise, incredibly, that differences of opinion practically define relationships and that the public had discerned that the present differences had something unprecedentedly different about them: they were being made public and being negotiated in public.
The initial denial was clearly integral to his strategy of projecting a calm, untroubled statesmanlike image, in the clear knowledge that that image would, in contrast to the inevitable grossness of Panday's responses, help him to upstage Panday in the minds of (much of) the UNC constituency and the wider public.
But the most amazing political scene was not Maharaj's studied misrepresentation, but the sycophancy of those cabinet colleagues who had not taken his side, as well as the sycophancy of some UNC activists outside of the cabinet, in their support for Panday. These people felt moved to express loyalty to Panday as political leader / prime minister in the light of the 'treachery' of Maharaj and his group.
It was mind-blowing (almost) in at least two ways. First, the grovelling servility came from some of the higher-profile UNCites despite the fact that they have the resources for personal independence and, at least in their non-political moments, manifest creditable levels of intelligence; I am talking about people like Mervyn Assam, John Humphrey, Carlos John, and Kamla Persad-Bissessar. Second, it sought to uphold an idea and an institution that has lost its way and that has grievously retarded our socio-political advance - prime ministerial dictatarship, maximum leadership, doctor politics, one-manship.
Why, in this day and age - with the masses accessing higher levels of enlightenment and self-esteem through globalised knowledge and socialisation, with the power of national and multinational companies being apparently uncheckable, with subnational constituencies clamouring for decentralisation of government, with the link between participatory democracy and community advancement clearly established - maximum leadership should be promoted, and promoted so dramatically, boggles my mind.
The Panday-Maharaj impasse is a virtual battle of diametrically opposed ideas. On the one hand, Maharaj wants adherence to the party's constitution, which takes some of the former powers of the political leader and gives them to the executive. On the other hand, Panday and his sycophants want the political leader to revert to his powers and see political governance in terms of, not adherence to the constitution or a constitution-specified collaboration between political leader and executive, but loyalty to the political leader.
It is as if the party is the political leader and the political leader the party. And indeed, the position is a reflex of our absurd political practice. The PNM was Eric Williams until his death. The DAC was ANR Robinson until its merger with the NAR. The NAR was ANR Robinson until his ascendancy to the presidency. The ULF was Basdeo Panday until its metamorphosis as UNC. The UNC is still substantially Basdeo Panday.
We must ask, Who have been the beneficiaries of this kind of practice? Has our ability to govern ourselves improved in any significant way? Are our various constituencies critically a part of the policy- and decision-making process?
If the answer to the first is our constituent communities or the masses, and the answer to the last two in the affirmative, that would be equally amazing and mind-boggling.
Whatever else his agenda may be, Maharaj seems to want to end the political leader's dictatorship in the UNC. How can that disadvantage the different constituencies in the UNC?
Archives / Winford James Homepage / Previous Page
^^ Back to top
