As another saga of party discipline presents itself in the public domain, it is useful to examine the evolution of legal and constitutional attempts to deal with this issue in the context of elected parliamentarians.
In addressing the 1972 Convention of the PNM, Dr Eric Williams advanced the following proposals in his convention address:
“(1) The candidate nominated by the party group must submit in writing to the Political Leader detailed replies to questions concerning his antecedents, political, economic and family; since a man is entitled to his privacy, this is a matter which must be exclusive to the political leader.
(2) Before his nomination by the political leader he must submit the following documents to the Political Leader, in a form prescribed by the Political Leader, bearing no date however (that would be supplied by the Political Leader if and when the situation requires it):
(a) a letter of resignation to the Speaker of the House of Representatives; (b) a letter to the political leader undertaking to serve without question in any capacity to which he is appointed by the prime minister; (c) a letter to the accountant general authorising the payment of such salary as may accrue to him in two parts, one part (the amount to be filled in by the prime minister depending on the post to which the member is assigned) representing a payment of 71/2 per cent of his emoluments to the party each month, the other part, the balance, to be paid to such Bank or other person as the member may specify …” (Address by the political leader to the Fourteenth Annual PNM Convention, September 29, 1972), pp 34-35.
These proposals were made mere months after Roy Richardson resigned from the PNM and also as a junior minister in the Ministry of Finance in July 1972 and was appointed leader of the Opposition. Williams had to find a way to enforce discipline for PNM candidates who could become PNM MPs.
These proposals were refined and placed in the PNM 1976 manifesto for the general election as follows:
“PNM pledges to provide expeditiously for an appropriate constitutional amendment requiring an elected Member of Parliament to vacate his seat in the event he ceases to support or be supported by, the party to which he belonged when he was elected.” (PNM manifesto, general election 1976), p 4.
Nothing was done by the Williams government on this after it returned to power following the September 1976 general election.
In 1977 Basdeo Panday was removed as the leader of the opposition by a majority of United Labour Front (ULF) MPs and replaced by Raffique Shah. The PNM had no reason to enact any constitutional amendment as the opposition was in turmoil. Then, on March 31, 1978, the world changed for Dr Williams.
Hector Mc Clean stood up in the House of Representatives and announced his resignation from the Cabinet and from the PNM and also renounced any signed and undated letter to the speaker that he had previously given to the political leader. Earlier the same day, Raffique Shah announced his resignation as leader of the Opposition as MP Winston Nanan, who had deserted Panday in 1977, had returned to Panday in 1978 thereby putting Shah’s tenure at risk. Williams pounced.
President Ellis Clarke re-appointed Panday as leader of the Opposition and the Williams Government hurriedly brought to Parliament a Crossing-the-Floor Bill which amended the Constitution and became Act No 15 of 1978. It created a new ground for an MP to vacate his/her seat by adding the condition of whether the MP had either resigned from or been expelled by, the party on whose ticket he/she was elected.
Panday and Williams both had the same interest in supporting the legislation. For Williams, he needed to guard against any of the five MPs whose candidacy he did not support in 1976 (Carlton Gomes, Brensley Barrow, Lionel Robinson, Sham Mohammed, and Victor Campbell) getting any ideas of crossing the floor to join Hector Mc Clean which could threaten the stability of his government. For Panday, he needed to expel Errol Mc Leod, Boodram Jattan, Paul Harrison, Raffique Shah, and Ramesh Lutchmedial to regain control of the ULF.
The PNM, the ULF, the NAR and the UNC have all experienced party indiscipline issues over the years since the amendment of 1978. There has only been one successful removal of an MP under these provisions which amended section 49 of the Constitution (Herbert Volney in 2013). The latest episode in the long parliamentary history of party indiscipline is nothing new and the UNC is currently at the podium of history on this issue now.