So we are back to square one. Basdeo Panday and Jack Warner offered the olive branch to Winston Dookeran, seeking opposition unity, but as expected, the leader of the Congress of the People (COP) said an emphatic no. In fact Dookeran says instead of responding to Jack Warner in 21 days, he will be having a 21-gun salute to mark his election victory.
"The reluctance of the UNC Alliance to choose its leader today leaves the voter confused and makes Basdeo Panday the leader if for no other reason than the fact that among the leadership of the UNC Alliance, he commands the strongest support among the people and because of his domineering political persona."
In fact last week Panday made that clear at a meeting in Rio Claro, a few days before he called on Dookeran to meet him one-on-one “anytime, any place” to talk opposition unity.
And that brings up the most nagging question about this whole unity matter. Leadership.
From what I am hearing and reading, the party is asking its supporters and those seeking an alternative to the PNM to go blindly into the voting booth and make a decision about the future of their nation without knowing which leader they are choosing.
Basdeo Panday is on record as saying it’s best to let the parliamentarians who emerge from the election choose the leader, because it’s possible that any one among the leadership contenders can lose his or her seat. Well that’s true in any election. Every leader takes that risk.
In Canada we have had at least one instance where a party won an election but its leader lost his seat. The party decided – rightly or wrongly – that the best way to resolve the problem was to ask one legislator in a “safe” riding (constituency) to quit and force a byelection in which the defeated leader ran and won, thereby taking his place in the provincial legislature and becoming premier.
We might argue that there’s something undemocratic about that on the basis that the electorate decided that while it wanted the party it didn’t care for the leader, and that another leader should have been allowed to take over the party. But consider the other side of argument, which is that the membership of the party chose their leader to take them into an election and by giving the party a clear mandate to govern, they stated unequivocally that they wanted that leader to be their premier.
The leader then had little choice but to seek the back-door entry into the legislature. And that really is the essence of leadership in our party-system of democratic governance. Otherwise we should just go back to a system of electing independents.
That original Westminster idea is a formula for gridlock because in the end, the Parliament would be comprised of 41 independent members, each serving the interests of his or her constituents first and the national interest second. And by that formula you will have leadership musical chairs. And there’s the danger that an individual MP might abdicate his or her constituency obligations for those of stronger lobbyists. That’s why the party system emerged. With all its flaws it works because people can choose a party for what it represents and believes in.
But we are dealing with today’s conventional politics and the job at hand. There is a PARTY. And it refuses to elect a leader. How can a party that emerged from among the people deny its supporters the right to have a leader?
It’s unfair to ask supporters and members to choose a leaderless organization with the hope that one person from the party will become the leader and prime minister when the party wins the election.
Let us assume the party goes ahead with this plan and wins, what will be the result? That’s easy to predict: chaos, bickering and an impotence that will affect the governing of a nation that today needs leadership more than anything else. undefined undefined Each of the members will have a right to be leader. How will the party make that final decision?
No matter what formula you use, it will still come down to alliances and deal making, which is unfortunately a part of politics everywhere. And if you look at the structure of the party today it is clear even now who will be the leader in such a scenario.
The most dominant UNC Alliance member is the UNC itself. The fact that it is called the UNC Alliance and uses the UNC’s rising sun symbol sends a clear signal that this is a group of UNC and the others, not the others and the UNC. The message is that everyone accepts that the UNC still has its support and strength.
Basdeo Panday is the undisputed UNC leader and all the MPs who sit the Parliament today are members of his party. Suppose Alvarez, Cadiz et al run in safe seats and win, they, along with Panday, will be eligible to lead. As would Jack Warner, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Kelvin Ramnath. In other words every MP will have an equal claim and will have to build alliances within the caucus to determine who will be the prime minister.
People will form blocs. That’s normal human behaviour and standard political practice. And while the party makes deals and fights among itself creating new factions of allegiances the nation will remain leadership. What will emerge will be a fractured group of MPs and a party in name only.
Someone will be the prime minister and the others who sought leadership will have to either follow or get out of the way. And we would be truly naïve if we believe that the people don’t know that.
So why not do it right now?
One Alliance leader worries that the media would focus too much on the leader. Well, I have stated before, that it is the media’s right and responsibility to do that because every leader must pass the media’s scrutiny if he or she wants to be prime minister.
The media represent the people as a fourth estate of government. In a democracy they are there to seek out the issues on behalf of the people and report on them as fairly and objectively as they can so that the people can form an informed opinion on which they can act. That’s how democracy works.
The reluctance of the UNC Alliance to choose its leader today leaves the voter confused and makes Basdeo Panday the leader if for no other reason than the fact that among the UNC Alliance leadership he commands the strongest support among the people and because of his domineering political persona.
The present negotiation for seat allocation is really about leadership. Why would any of the leader agree to weaken his position by giving up ‘safe’ seats to a potential opponent for the leadership? So in the end, the process would serve the individual not the people.
On the other hand, if the UNC Alliance were to settle the question of leadership today then it can move on to select the BEST candidates to represent the people and serve the national interest, not the ones best suited to the parochial interests of would-be leaders.
When Basdeo Panday handed A.N.R. Robinson the leadership of the NAR he was acting on the same premise – that his decision that day was the best in the national interest. There was no doubt that his party had the most winnable seats. The DAC component that Robinson led was a Tobago party and Karl Hudson Phillip’s ONR, which had failed to win a seat even though it had got more votes that the UNC, DAC and Tapia combined in 1981, was a knock-off PNM.
Panday’s reasoning was based on seeing the big picture; his focus was on getting to Whitehall. He was convinced that Robinson was the best choice to WIN the election. And his decision gave the people the confidence they needed to end 35 years of PNM rule. The people did the ‘unthinkable’ because Basdeo Panday stood like a statesman and removed himself from the leadership for the sake of the nation.
Today the nation is again crying out for leadership. Why then is the UNC Alliance not showing it when it has a golden opportunity to win the elections?
Panday and others might argue that the Robinson strategy worked to win an election but didn’t solve the problem. Perhaps Panday is being cautious, having been burned once. But he also has the 1981 experiment to consider.
Given the historical record, the better choice is to go with A LEADER. People want to know who is going to lead the nation before they cast that ballot.
In any case, the people who are voting for the UNC Alliance will be mainly UNC supporters. The other parties have no constituency and no track record, unlike DAC, ONR and Tapia, although their leaders have merit.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the party doesn’t want to damage its fragile partnership arrangements by insisting on settling the leadership issue after the election. But that fear shows weakness and a lack of confidence.
The convenient excuses we are hearing and will continue to hear will not resolve the most fundamental problem of leadership. If settling the leadership question today will fracture the coalition, so be it. Because when the voting is done and the results announced, the fracturing will indeed happen.
And then the party would be guilty of a betrayal of the people.
If the UNC Alliance is serious winning this election, Basdeo Panday must show the leadership that he demonstrated before. He must demand that the issue of a party leader must be settled now.
And I am sure that the man I know will walk away if he is convinced that it is the right thing to do.
He did it before because he put the nation first.
People who want to lead must show the confidence it takes to win. Let the people decide who among the UNC Alliance leaders is the one who can beat the PNM and take the party to Whitehall.
Everybody who aspires for leadership does so knowing that there will always be just one leader. Each of the leaders has come into this partnership has a right to aspire to take the party into government.
Basdeo Panday has said often enough he doesn’t want to lead. But he remains the pillar on which opposition unity is built. Today the challenge is for him to stand again like the statesman he is and do that which the nation needs. Choose the man or woman who is the most winnable leader among you, name that person and stand and proclaim to the nation again, this is your leader; this is your next prime minister.
Shakespeare’s Cassius, in trying to convince Brutus to join a coalition against Julius Caesar reminded Brutus that there is a “…tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads to fortune…” He concluded that “…upon such a full sea are we now afloat and we must take the tide as it turns or lose our ventures.”
Trinidad and Tobago is now sitting on that full tide. Now is the time to end the political posturing and level with the people.
They are ready to change their government. It is time for the UNC Alliance to show them that its is ready do the same.
Jai Parasram - Sept. 20, 2007
No comments:
Post a Comment