Silly Politics on the CCJ
Aug 10, 2003, Posted Aug 13, 2003
by Dr Winford James
Basdeo Panday and his UNC parliamentarians (with the possible exception of Gerald Yetming) intend (at the time of writing) to refuse to support legislation for the establishment of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ). They say that they support the establishment of the CCJ, but on the condition that the Manning government agree to a timetable for the institution of constitutional reform and, inclusively, that it present plans for the diminution of racial discrimination. That's silly politics, and Panday knows it, but he also knows that he can get away with it.
If the establishment of the CCJ was a purely local Trinbagonian matter, Panday's position would have been great politics, for it would have represented an approach to politics aimed at forcing the government to make concessions in the name of representative democracy, which must be healthy thing for our troubled circumstances. No democratic government should seriously expect the opposition to support them simply because they think their cause is self-evidently good. The opposition clearly did not vote for the government in the general elections, nor did their supporters. So they can't be expected to facilely support the government's agenda no matter how beneficial to the country as a whole the latter seems to be. In a first-past-the-post polity, trade-offs are necessary for the containment of power as well as for the widest level of social justice.
If the government needs some of the opposition votes on a purely local Trinbagonian matter, then it must be prepared to concede something for such votes. The very structure of the voting requirement suggests that that is how it must be - not that I am suggesting that the particular requirement is wise or just. But let us on the basis of that requirement do some hard-headed politics and, hopefully, end up with a win-win result complete with trade-offs. There can be no doubt that we need constitution reform and need it desperately, and since the government is taking its sweet time on it, the opposition has got to keep it alive in the public consciousness. But the opposition has to wait for the right issue to come along.
The establishment of the CCJ is not the right issue; nay, it is definitely the wrong issue. For many reasons. Let's consider three.
The main reason is that the CCJ is not only, as it name implies, a Caribbean issue, but that both government and opposition have declared their support for its establishment, each as government and opposition. The UNC say they want it; the PNM say they want it too. Panday says he wants it; Manning says 'Amen'. But Panday now says he will not support local legislation to bring it into being because the constitution is working against his political tribe. His party can't do anything for the tribe out of government, because the constitution gives the government all the spoils, and the government is manipulating and distributing such spoils discriminatorily; that is, in favour of Afros and against Indos. Were he and his party in power, he would have us believe, he would have pushed the legislation, and expected the PNM to support it, for wasn't the UNC leading the thrust for constitutional reform, and wasn't it innocent of racial discrimination?
What does our constitutional problem - characteristic, mind you, of all the island states - have to do with the establishment of a CCJ? And isn't it instructive that none of the relevant Caribbean governments and oppositions support his stance on the matter?
A second reason, hinted above, is that Panday's stance lacks credibility. People are saying that 1) he supported the CCJ when he was in government but is turning his back on it now that he is in opposition; 2) he had some six years to push for constitutional reform but did not, in a context where the motivation for reform did not arise after he was thrown out of office, but long predated his ascension to office; 3) a dark and heavy cloud of corruption continues to hang over his head; and 4) his call for reform is contradictory, giving the lack of democracy and evenhandedness in his own party, evident in unabashed public confessions by some of his most ardent supporters that he has to choose or endorse his successor for the party to survive his departure. Indeed, Yetming has been saying openly that the party's non-support of the legislation for the CCJ needs to be reviewed as it hurt the party in the recent local government elections and continues to hurt it.
The third reason is that many of his erstwhile supporters are finding it supremely easy, now that he is powerless in opposition (from the point of view of lack of control over the distribution of power and patronage), to either leave the UNC and support, if not join, the PNM or park their support until more credible politics comes along or is allowed to come along in the party.
These and other reasons should convince Panday to stop worsening the party's image and support the legislation. But how do they do so when the man is accustomed to grievously hurting the party's image and getting away with it? How do they when the politics of race, ethnicity, and onemanship have fashioned both a leader who can do wrong and a followership in whom the voice of public dissent has been stifled, if not silenced?
Part I | Part II | Part III
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