Column: What is the UNC protecting?

The internal election in the United National Congress (UNC) that reaches its climax in the next few days has been an eye-opener for many not because of some of the expected campaign talk but for the messages in statements on platforms and in media interviews.

There is no doubt that in its glory days the party represented the widest cross section of interests in Trinidad and Tobago and people of every group gravitated to it.

It was primarily because the UNC had a vision of equality and justice and was born out of a desire to make life better for everyone. Its liberal democracy philosophy and the bottom-up approach to leadership helped create the movement that took Basdeo Panday to government in 1995 in a coalition with his political arch-enemy, Arthur N.R. Robinson.
And the UNC's performance in government brought it its first and only true electoral victory, the majority in the 2000 general election. But under the weight of allegations of corruption the government fell and the party has never been able to rise again.

In the nine years since the 2000 victory, the party has continually lost support among its own membership and those non-members who supported the UNC's vision and its performance in government.

The figures are alarming and not getting any better. Here's what the statistics show for the 2000 general election, which was a two-party affair with 36 seats at stake:

• UNC - 307,791 - 51.7% - 19 seats
• PNM - 276,334 - 46.4% - 16 seats
• NAR - 007,409 - 01.2% - 01 seat (Tobago)

By 2007 the PNM was back in office with a majority, but only with minority support. And a third party had emerged, born out of dissent within the UNC. There were 41 seats:

• PNM - 299,813 - 45.85% - 26 seats
• UNCA - 194,425 - 29.73 % - 15 seats (UNC and a coalition of smaller parties)
• COP - 148,041 - 22.65% - no seat

The figures show what might appear to be an illogical imbalance but is a well-known anomaly in multi-party political systems.

While a majority of the electorate rejected the governing party, the PNM returned to Parliament with a stronger majority than in the 2002 election primarily because those who opposed the government were not united in a common cause.
The message from the current internal election campaign from those trying to unseat Panday and his loyalists is that the UNC has lost its "winnability" and the party has declined steadily since it lost government in 2000.

They blame it on the erosion of democracy, the demise of party institutions and a lack of accountability and professionalism. And they are saying the fragmented opposition won't work with the Panday UNC so returning to government seems to be a lost cause.

Panday and his team dismiss the charge saying those who want to take control of the party - people like Jack Warner and Kamla Persad-Bissessar - are political opportunists who have no regard for those who laboured to build the UNC.

In this context the UNC faithful are "protecting" the party from interlopers whose mission, they say, it is to dismantle the party and hand it to others. The "others" is code for the Congress of the People (COP) that stumped the UNC Alliance in the 2007 election, taking away 90,000 of its supporters.

Many of those prodigals have become disenchanted with the COP's new politics and its disdain for the rank and file members and have tried to return home to the UNC only to find the doors closed. What's worse, high-ranking UNC MPs and officials are maligning them as outsiders and even thugs trying to storm the UNC to steal it from those who are die-hard, loyal founding members.

On the campaign platforms, Panday has made impassioned speeches pleading with those who love the UNC to "protect" it. "It is not my party," he has said, "the UNC is your party that you laboured to build", noting that only those who were present at its birth can appreciate the need to be protective of the "baby" that will turn 21 this year.

In that context he is appealing to a small group while excluding the youth and those who have been attracted to the UNC's vision and want to be a part of it but were not there at the beginning.If only those who witnessed the birth of the movement understand and are welcome, where is the room for growth, especially to include young men and women who are seeking membership in a movement that invited everyone in 1988 to join a crusade for justice, equality and freedom?

Panday and the UNC have not addressed that and they have dismissed concerns that after nine years in decline there is no hope for the UNC ever getting back into government.

"Give me a disciplined team," Panday said this week, "And I shall give you government." That's a tall order for a party that has been so fractured from this campaign that healing, if at all possible, will take a painfully long time.

One prominent UNC MP has made it clear that those who are "indisciplined" have no place in the UNC, which suggests that dissenters will become pariahs as the new executive gets down to business.

And this raises the question of what IS the UNC today and what is the party protecting and what is its future?.

If, as Panday says, only those who have been around since the Aranguez declaration of 1988 that founded the UNC are welcome, then he is at the same time condemning the UNC to stagnation and a permanent place in opposition.

This is not to suggest that Panday and his loyalists have no political currency or that they lack the skills needed to move the party forward; rather it is a signal that the UNC will remain a closed shop for a privileged few who fanatically follow the leader.

Such an attitude means the UNC is missing the best opportunity ever to get back to Whitehall.

The present government is perhaps the most unpopular ever and there is a clamour for change that no serious political party should ignore.

The interest this internal election has generated is unprecedented. Tens of thousands who cannot even vote are saying they are ready to move the government, but the question today is whether the UNC is too wounded to answer the call.

When the shouting is over, this party will remain the official opposition.

And it will remain there unless it emerges with a determination to change the way it conducts its business. It has no other alternative because those founding members alone, those who belong to the privileged group, are too few to win an election.

The UNC has to court the general electorate and present the country with a clear alternative or suffer the humiliation of greater defeats.
The tragedy for the UNC - and for the nation - is that if a new leadership emerges after Sunday's vote, it will meet intense hostility from the party's loyalists and its Parliamentary caucus.

On the other hand if the status quo remains and Panday and his team are returned to office, those who opposed him will feel his wrath and will likely be banished.

Either way, the party will continue to lose its attractiveness. And the message of protecting a privileged political few while excluding the majority will tell the nation that the masses have no place in the UNC, especially the youth who are tomorrow's leaders.

The UNC, it seems, has become a poor shadow of the serious political movement it once was and if it fails to manage its affairs professionally and with transparency it will witness an exodus of members and supporters.

And that would be the greatest gift that anyone could hand to Prime Minister Patrick Manning and his PNM.

Jai Parasram | 20 January 2010