Geisha Kow­lessar

David Ab­du­lah's res­ig­na­tion as a Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor and the with­draw­al of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment has sig­nalled a di­vi­sion with­in the labour move­ment. Ab­du­lah's cred­i­bil­i­ty was al­so stretched to the point where he had no choice but to make a de­ci­sion.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Hamid Ghany said yes­ter­day while there were some labour bod­ies which sided with the MSJ oth­ers were not in sup­port of the par­ty's poli­cies. "For in­stance pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Wat­son Duke has pub­licly called on the Gov­ern­ment to in­sti­tute the prop­er­ty tax, while in 2009, Ab­du­lah was cart­ed off by po­lice as he protest­ed against the pro­posed prop­er­ty tax out­side the Red House.

"So clear­ly some labour lead­ers are not in sup­port of the MSJ's poli­cies while oth­er would cer­tain­ly want to make a de­tach­ment from the par­ty," Ghany said. Ab­du­lah's res­ig­na­tion, he added, sig­nalled that the "time had fi­nal­ly come," for the for­mer sen­a­tor. "An­cel Ro­get is the pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) and David Ab­du­lah is the gen­er­al sec­re­tary so the OW­TU was fac­ing a pos­si­ble split if Ad­bu­lah did not take a po­si­tion.

"Ab­du­lah's cred­i­bil­i­ty was al­so stretched out on the one hand by his po­si­tion as a sen­a­tor and he call­ing on MSJ mem­bers to re­sign from State boards while he re­tained his sen­a­to­r­i­al po­si­tion. So it seemed that his time had fi­nal­ly come...it was in­evitable," Ghany said.

On whether this was a clear sig­nal of a weak­en­ing of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Ghany said it was dif­fi­cult to tell. "It's ear­ly days still. We haven't heard from much of the All Trinidad Sug­ar and Gen­er­al Work­ers, Trade Union (ATS­GW­TU). James Lam­bert, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW) has al­so made state­ments and ex­pressed views which are dif­fer­ent to that of Ab­du­lah's. "So there is def­i­nite­ly a weak­en­ing of the labour move­ment."

Ra­goonath: No im­pact on the Gov­ern­ment

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath is pre­dict­ing that Ab­du­lah's res­ig­na­tion would have no im­pact on the Gov­ern­ment. Say­ing he was not sur­prised by Ab­du­lah's de­ci­sion Ra­goonath added, "the Gov­ern­ment will go on as usu­al. It means ab­solute­ly noth­ing."

He said the res­ig­na­tion "sim­ply meant" that Ab­du­lah and the MSJ had de­cid­ed to go their own way. "This will have ab­solute­ly no im­pact on the coun­try and it al­so does not mean there are cracks with­in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship."

Du­mas: I'm not sur­prised

For­mer head of the pub­lic ser­vice Regi­nald Du­mas said he was ex­pect­ing Ab­du­lah to quit the Gov­ern­ment. "I'm not at all sur­prised. This was what I ex­pect­ed be­cause Mr Ab­du­lah has been mak­ing his po­si­tion clear for some­time," Du­mas said yes­ter­day.

With the res­ig­na­tion, he added, pres­sure would be placed on the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP) to pub­licly state their re­spec­tive po­si­tions. "Since the MSJ said it pulled out based on prin­ci­ple be­cause it had giv­en the Gov­ern­ment un­til May 24 to deal with cer­tain is­sues which were de­clared in the man­i­festo, and this was not done, then this leaves the two ma­jor par­ties to de­clare their po­si­tion," Du­mas said.

But this is not a sign of the Gov­ern­ment's col­lapse. In fact, he added, the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to func­tion. "The Gov­ern­ment is not go­ing to fall be­cause of this and it will have no ef­fect in terms of the Gov­ern­ment's abil­i­ty to gov­ern. Mr Er­rol McLeod was elect­ed on a UNC tick­et," Du­mas added.

How­ev­er, Ab­du­lah's res­ig­na­tion would have a "po­lit­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal ef­fect" on the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion. Du­mas said peo­ple would be look­ing at the COP and TOP and won­der­ing if, and when, they will with­draw from the coali­tion. "There is now a wait-and-see at­ti­tude as there is an ob­vi­ous loss of faith by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment be­cause this has said the coali­tion Gov­ern­ment has not lived up to its ex­pec­ta­tions."

"NJAC (Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee) is not a ma­jor force. The pres­sure is now on the COP and TOP as peo­ple would want to know Mr Ra­mad­har's and Mr Ash­worth's po­si­tions and they have to de­clare their hand."