The com­ing to­geth­er of a num­ber of small in­flu­en­tial groups and two es­tab­lished po­lit­i­cal par­ties (the UNC and the COP) has been called var­i­ous­ly "an arrange­ment," "an ac­com­mo­da­tion," "an al­liance," "a par­ty of par­ties," and "a coali­tion."

It is a coali­tion in the ba­sic sense that it is a unit­ing of dif­fer­ent in­ter­est groups or par­ties to achieve a com­mon pur­pose.

It is no se­cret that the pur­pose is to de­feat the PNM and win po­lit­i­cal pow­er. It is im­por­tant to recog­nise that this coali­tion was not formed on the spur of the po­lit­i­cal mo­ment. The main pro­tag­o­nists have been try­ing to come to terms for some time. But they were cer­tain­ly has­tened in­to de­ci­sive ac­tion by the games­man­ship of the Prime Min­is­ter, who end­ed the life of his gov­ern­ment half-way through its term and set an elec­tion date cal­cu­lat­ed to catch them out.

There is no sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence that coali­tions are more in­her­ent­ly un­sta­ble than any oth­er form of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion, and the po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go does not show that coali­tions or coali­tion gov­ern­ments are more prone to fall than sin­gle-par­ty gov­ern­ments. The state­ment that the present coali­tion will split up counts for noth­ing in the po­lit­i­cal cam­paign, since it might al­so be claimed that the same thing can hap­pen to the com­pet­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Per­son­al agen­das and per­son­al­i­ty clash­es come in­to it, but the sur­vival or not of a coali­tion, the chal­lenges it must face, and its pos­si­bil­i­ties for growth are in­flu­enced by the na­ture of the so­ci­ety out of which it is born, and the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem in­to which it has to fit and con­fig­ure it­self. Be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion of 1956, every­body ex­cept Dr Er­ic Williams was con­vinced that no par­ty could win a ma­jor­i­ty, and that coali­tion was the way to go.

This was a re­sponse to a truth that is even more com­pelling 50 years lat­er: with its long his­to­ry of racial, eth­nic and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty, Trinidad was born for coali­tion. But there are dif­fer­ent types of coali­tion. A ma­jor dis­tinc­tion is that be­tween coali­tions formed be­fore an elec­tion ('pre-elec­tion coali­tions') and coali­tions formed af­ter the re­sults of an elec­tion have been de­clared ('post-elec­tion coali­tions'). A post-elec­tion coali­tion is a hard-head­ed af­fair or a com­mon-law mar­riage of con­ve­nience. It tends to be safe, if not al­ways com­fort­able. It gen­er­ates lit­tle ex­cite­ment, and its pos­si­bil­i­ties are de­signed­ly lim­it­ed. Each par­ty re­mains it­self. There is no plan or wish to fuse in­to one. For all that, post-elec­tion coali­tions work well in some coun­tries, es­pe­cial­ly those in which where there is pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. In mul­ti-par­ty states, like Ger­many, Nor­way and Swe­den, where it is un­usu­al for any par­ty to win enough seats to form a gov­ern­ment by it­self, vot­ers vote for the par­ty of their choice, ful­ly ex­pect­ing that a coali­tion will be formed when the re­sults are known.

Dur­ing the cam­paign, the par­ties de­clare in ad­vance that cer­tain par­ties whose poli­cies are close enough to theirs would be their pre­ferred part­ners in an al­liance.

In the coun­tries men­tioned, coali­tion gov­ern­ment is not as­so­ci­at­ed with in­sta­bil­i­ty or with a rash of elec­tions. If a coali­tion los­es a cru­cial part­ner, some­body is usu­al­ly able to put to­geth­er a new com­bi­na­tion. The vari­ant of post-elec­tion coali­tion that may emerge in Britain in 2010 helps us to see the oth­er side of post-elec­tion coali­tions. The Lib-Dem leader has cho­sen to ne­go­ti­ate with the Con­ser­v­a­tives first, al­though his par­ty has more in com­mon with Labour. If the Lib-Dem leader in­sists on pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion (PR) as a con­di­tion, there will be no agree­ment with the Con­ser­v­a­tive Par­ty, and that should be the end of that at­tempt.

Yet, hu­man na­ture is such, the Con­ser­v­a­tives may be able to of­fer oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions at­trac­tive to the Lib-Dem leader, per­son­al­ly, or to his par­ty, and he may scale down or even aban­don the de­mand for PR, the very thing that gives his par­ty the votes it musters in an elec­tion. The el­e­ment of op­por­tunism that ex­ists in all post-elec­tion coali­tions is some­times more bla­tant than that.

The 1996 post-elec­tion coali­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go, be­tween the UNC and the DAC, was not based up­on prin­ci­ple, pol­i­cy, po­lit­i­cal affini­ties or per­son­al pref­er­ence. It was a deal struck by lead­ers with­out ref­er­ence to the elec­torate. It was a deal that made a po­lit­i­cal foot­ball of the pres­i­den­cy. It could just as eas­i­ly have been a deal be­tween the PNM and the DAC.

Post-elec­tion coali­tions of this sort are not like­ly to last, and this one didn't. An ear­li­er post-elec­tion coali­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go was not even in­tend­ed to last. With 13 of the 24 elect­ed seats in what was to be a 31-mem­ber Leg­isla­tive Coun­cil af­ter the 1956 gen­er­al elec­tion, Dr Er­ic Williams did not try to find the nec­es­sary three Trinida­di­an al­lies from among the oth­er 11 elect­ed per­sons.

His pre-elec­tion po­si­tion had been that the PNM would go it alone. So he forced in­to be­ing a coali­tion gov­ern­ment con­sist­ing of the 13 elect­ed PNM mem­bers and the sev­en ap­pointees of the Crown.

That it was a coali­tion would be less and less ap­par­ent, as the dom­i­nant par­ty tight­ened its hold on pow­er, and it was doomed to dis­ap­pear as soon as Dr Williams won the bat­tle for Cab­i­net rule that he had start­ed be­fore the elec­tion. Pre-elec­tion coali­tions are not im­mune to the self­ish­ness in­her­ent in hu­man af­fairs, but they can be lib­er­at­ing and en­nobling, be­cause they open up pos­si­bil­i­ties for co-op­er­a­tion and for hu­man growth. Since every­body can't get all that they want, and every par­ty can­not have its par­tic­u­lar agen­da adopt­ed, the mem­bers have a chance to go through a bur­nish­ing process of ne­go­ti­a­tion and com­pro­mise to ar­rive at an agreed pol­i­cy state­ment, and an im­ple­men­ta­tion agen­da to which all the par­ties will­ing­ly sub­scribe. A pre-elec­tion coali­tion, in­deed, rais­es vi­tal ques­tions for hu­man be­ings. Can a coali­tion of "known" per­sons and or­gan­i­sa­tions be­come some­thing new?

If the mantra of change is a call from the ag­o­nised depths of the so­ci­ety, and if the mem­bers of the coali­tion are hum­ble enough to un­der­stand that they are in­volved in a pro­found di­a­logue with the peo­ple, so that change and re­new­al ap­ply to them­selves al­so, the an­swer is "Yes." The key fig­ures who take the lead in try­ing to make a new day are them­selves sub­ject to be­ing re-made. The en­er­gy re­leased by the com­ing to­geth­er of the dif­fer­ent el­e­ments can im­pel the new con­fig­u­ra­tion and the per­sons in it in di­rec­tions not imag­ined be­fore­hand. This may make it sound as if cre­ativ­i­ty in pol­i­tics is like cre­ativ­i­ty in art. Well, it is. If a vi­sion­ary prospect is not gen­uine­ly em­braced, the coali­tion will boil back down to the same old thing. A pre-elec­tion coali­tion is con­sis­tent with the na­ture of our so­ci­ety. Trinidad and To­ba­go's eth­nic and cul­tur­al di­ver­si­ty cries out for a gov­ern­ment made up of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of all the in­ter­est groups. If we had that, fair­ness to all would be­come the supreme po­lit­i­cal val­ue. The pre-elec­tion coali­tion of 1986 (The NAR) seemed to promise that. It ex­cit­ed the pop­u­la­tion and was called the rain­bow coali­tion, be­cause peo­ple who live our di­ver­si­ty felt that at last a po­lit­i­cal par­ty had come in­to be­ing which, to all ap­pear­ances, could just­ly rep­re­sent all groups and in­ter­ests.

It let down it­self, but it did not kill the dream, or the need for the dream. A pre-elec­tion coali­tion is a nat­ur­al growth in our so­ci­ety, but it is not made easy in our im­port­ed po­lit­i­cal sys­tem.

The prin­ci­ple that all groups and in­ter­ests should be rep­re­sent­ed has nev­er been served by the win­ner-take-all, first-past-the-post sys­tem we have im­i­tat­ed and ex­ploit­ed for self­ish pur­pos­es.

A vic­to­ry for the coali­tion will go some way to­wards in­sti­tut­ing the fair and eq­ui­table so­ci­ety that the ad­vo­cates of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion want. If the coali­tion wins, it might be their des­tiny to gov­ern in a man­ner that would re­move dis­trust and in­se­cu­ri­ty, per­form the fi­nal rites over racial vot­ing, and lead the tran­si­tion to an ap­pro­pri­ate form of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion and oth­er far-reach­ing con­sti­tu­tion re­forms. There is a moun­tain­ous sleep­ing po­lice­man round the cor­ner at the end of the stretch.

The coali­tion must de­cide ear­ly whether the mem­bers want to co­a­lesce in­to one par­ty, or whether the coali­tion will func­tion bet­ter as a con­fed­er­a­tion of groups who have bound them­selves to im­ple­ment and safe­guard a clear and agreed pol­i­cy. The lat­ter course would build-in the pres­ence of guards to guard the guards, and pre­vent a re­turn to the mon­u­ment of one-par­ty, one-man rule that the coun­try is push­ing the coali­tion to shat­ter.