Sunday Express - December 17, 2000
By Raffique Shah
THERE can be no disputing the fact that Basdeo Panday and the UNC won last Monday’s general election, albeit under a cloud of allegations of election-related irregularities, the likes of which we have never witnessed since the introduction of voting machines by the PNM back in 1961. Besides winning 19 seats to the PNM’s 17 and the NAR’s one, the party won the popular vote, while the PNM’s biggest achievement was its performance in Tobago. A simple overview of the results will show that Panday is boss, Patrick Manning lost, Hochoy Charles and the NAR no longer control Tobago the way they did for some 25 years, and Deborah Moore-Miggins’ PEP lacks the energy its acronym suggests.
But that’s a simplistic analysis of the results and related issues. While they were good enough to put Panday back in Whitehall and to once more threaten Manning’s leadership of the PNM, the truth is they bothered me to no end. And this had nothing to do with Panday retaining office for five more years. Let me put it this way: on Monday night, my mind was taken back 25, 30, 40 years, to a period when Eric Williams and the PNM reigned supreme. Then, it mattered not what his sins were, the party’s core supporters—Africans in the main, but they also included a significant number of non-Africans, especially the wealthy—waved the balisier in the faces of those who stood steadfastly for morality in public affairs, who demanded accountability.
Of course, opponents of the PNM at that time were treated with as much contempt as those who dare raise questions about the UNC today. On Monday Panday brought out “the tribe” in a way no Indian leader was able to do, except perhaps Rudranath Capildeo in 1961. True, Panday did manage to garner some support from Africans, mainly from beneficiaries of URP jobs and those who believed it was he who introduced free education. I am sure, too, that some of the older folks who receive higher pensions today than they did five years ago, felt morally compelled to support the UNC.
But those who read in the increased numbers in traditional PNM constituencies a major breakthrough for the UNC, a rekindling of “one love” a la 1986, are only fooling themselves. Increases in votes in PNM strongholds were in the main a benefit of incumbency. Let me explain. The party in government has the resources to target the marginal constituencies and even strongholds of its opponents when it comes to distributing largesse.
An example of this is the NAR. In 1986, that party swept the PNM from office with 380,000 votes (65 per cent of votes cast) to the PNM’s 183,000 (31 per cent). By 1991, the NAR was all but dead, except for Tobago. Still, the party, because it had been in office for five years, polled close to 127,000 votes (the PNM won then with 234,000 votes to the UNC’s 151,000).
By 1995, though, the NAR was all but dead. So the UNC’s gains in traditional PNM strongholds must be seen in this context, at least partly. This is not to take anything away from the genuine gains it made through Panday’s charisma and the hard work that its activists did in the constituencies.
Besides the incumbency factor, there were allegations of irregularities at the polls. I am not here addressing the issue of voter padding, which, I should add, was alarming to the point of raising serious questions over certain results. Voter padding is nothing new. I recall ULF officials making such charges from as far back as the 1976 election. This time around, with the UNC in power, that exercise was used against the PNM, and effectively so. There were reports of large numbers of “outsiders” voting in the marginal constituencies, and while some of this will come to light as the lists are re-examined (people may even be charged), they will not change the results of the election. There is, too, the Gypsy and Chaitan issue. The courts will deal with that matter over the next few weeks, and the final results may not be what UNC supporters expect, although the party’s leaders know what’s in the offing.
Panday and others are shouting from the rooftops that the “voice of the people is the voice of God”, an adage that I agree with. But when Rupert Griffith and Vincent Lasse crossed the floor in 1996, did the voice of the people who had voted them into office count? Another point: if the situation were in the reverse, that is if the PNM had put up two “illegal” candidates and they had won, would Panday and Ramesh Maharaj have accepted “the voice of the people”? Would they not have gone to court first thing Tuesday morning?
None of what I have written can detract from the reality that the PNM, as it is currently structured, is doomed to die if it does not radically change its image. It is not for me to tell the balisier bunch how to run their affairs.
But the numbers in its strongholds should signal to the party that it has failed to rally young voters to its side, and that could be because of the old geezers who insist on holding on to memories of another day rather than move with the times. That deficiency showed up clearly on polling day, and if the leadership wants to close its eyes to that reality, it would do so to its peril.
In the final analysis, though, it’s the resurgence of the “tribes” that worries me. UNC attorney Anand Ramlogan, speaking on a panel discussion, spoke about “the pendulum having been stuck one way for decades, but swinging the other way now”. I don’t think it has swung too far: if I did, then I would have to accept the PNM-cum-African-dominance of the past. There should be no pendulum to swing any which way, especially when it’s racially weighted. What we need in this country is balance, tolerance of each other and respect for leaders based not on race, but on their integrity, on their genuineness in fostering harmony among all in this rainbow country. That we don’t have. And we won’t, not until we rid ourselves of leaders who thrive on “apanghat” politics.
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Copyright © Raffique Shah
