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No way back
December 13, 2001
By Denis Solomon
THE 2001 election has just about convinced us that we cannot elect a government under our present system. Since 1995, when Manning failed to realise that his majority of three was unrepeatable, we have had a 17-17 tie, a narrow and dubious win for one party, and now an 18-18 split Racial voting has burst the chains of the constituency system. A 50-50 racial split in the population has produced a 50-50 distribution of seats.
The solutions bandied about have been vacuous and self-serving. Some proposed an immediate return to the polls. But this could only produce more of the same. Even a nineteen-seventeen situation has already proved unworkable. The likelihood of tiny majorities was foreseen as early as 1976 when the Constitution was amended to enable the House of Representatives to elect (i.e. to enable the government to appoint) a Speaker from outside the House. The politicians wanted government to be all-powerful, and the population was deluded into the belief that democracy was assured as long as that government emerged from an elected Parliament. No one acknowledged any need for an independent legislature. The fact that thirty-six is divisible by two would be taken care of by gerrymandering.
Some said the President should appoint Panday because the UNC had the majority of the popular vote.
Some said he should appoint Manning, because of the PNM's gains since the previous election (in fact Manning himself hinted as much). One thinker claimed that the PNM's control of Tobago entitled it to control, even if Parliament were split 50- 50, the whole country.
Some people merely encapsulated their ignorance in the statement that "the President must decide".
The President cannot decide anything. He cannot appoint anyone who would be opposed by half the House. The solution is not in his hands. A temporary solution lies with the politicians; a permanent solution lies with the people.
Besides, all these suggestions are meant only to break the deadlock. They do not address the poverty of the actual choices available. Those choices too are the result of the system. Lloyd Best, on the TV6 election night panel, claimed that people who once voted race through ignorance may now do so through lack of choice. Would an Indo who wanted to dump Panday vote for Manning instead? Would an Afro disenchanted with Manning opt for Panday as a replacement? Best's hypothesis, of course, implies that given more attractive options, that Indo and that Afro would exist in sufficient numbers to make a difference. The Catch-22 is that the hypothesis can never be verified while the present system exists.
We must aim for a system that will counterbalance the effects of racial voting while gradually demonstrating its futility to those who cling to it.
The patchwork suggestions of the lawyers and talk-show callers have no place in such a solution. Nevertheless, one or two of them reveal the glimmerings of an understanding of the institutional heart of the problem. One caller to Power 102 said that the people who didn't vote should be "made" to choose between party slates, with the nation as a single constituency. A caller to TV6 suggested another election, between Panday and Manning alone - something like a single combat between the leaders of two mediaeval hordes.
The kernel of sense in these suggestions is that they imply the elimination of the House of Representatives as the broker of governments. In Trinidad and Tobago, Parliament is an extension of the executive. The smaller the majority of the governing party, the more intent one half of the Parliament becomes on keeping it in office, and the other half on throwing it out. The ongoing representational needs of the population go by the board.
The only permanent answer is to take government out of Parliament. The executive must be separated from the legislature, and elected directly by the people. Then, a government could take office with a majority of a single vote, and even if Parliament were split 50-50, MPs would be much less bound to the party line, and the legislative process would be improved.
The power-sharing arrangement that Panday and Manning are now discussing with the President can take only one form: alternating leadership.
Alternating terms would give us two governments without a majority instead of one.
Alternating leadership is also fraught with difficulties, from the minor ones such as the shape of the chamber and how the Senate is to be appointed, to the major ones such as assignment of Ministries and the danger of Parliament being even more of a rubber stamp.
It is widely believed, too, that Panday's power-sharing proposal was a means of keeping himself out of jail. When it is Manning's turn to lead, he might find it hard to keep his anti-corruption promises if their main target is part of his administration.
This may even have been part of the agreement.
The great virtue of power-sharing, however, is that it is so unwieldy that it can only be temporary. Which means that we will be forced to find a permanent alternative, and quickly.
Copyright © 2004 Denis Solomon
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