The last “minuteness” of the reactions to the possible election of a new President of the Republic seems indicative of the desire to do nothing fundamental about the manner in which the leader of the State is elected and or selected.
With a few weeks to go before the Parliament proposes a candidate or candidate, the analysts, the media, former political leaders, ex-prime ministers and everyone else with a voice shouts loudly about constitutional change to the way a president is placed in office.
Naturally, the contentions and the counters reach for the ideal of an individual who rises above the narrow and provincial cut and thrust of the party politics, the change to an executive president, the roles to be played in the process by the government and the opposition etc.
Since the late 1980s when the Hyatali Constitution Commission (plus the Prof. John La Guerre minority report) laid out in detail an outline for change, there have been three to four expanded efforts at proposals for fundamental change to the constitution.
The desire for change to the manner of governance has been the reality that the existing Republican Constitution, the one that Prime Minister Dr Eric Williams designed for his own purposes, he having contended that the Wooding Commission proposals (the one he established) sought to “break up the PNM majorities” does not meet the needs of the society and polity that exist.
Spelt out that means that the Independence Constitution, notwithstanding minor changes, is essentially the one Britain endorsed in order to grant Independence to its colonial outpost. Therefore, the contention continues, there is a need for a national constitution which takes cognizance of our state as a society, a polity and economy into the 21st century.
But even with such a recognition, we as a country have sat idly by, quarrelled much about the inappropriateness of the Republican Constitution, but have not, perhaps more correctly, do not have the gumption to make changes to the colonial constitutional arrangements. It’s a colonial infirmity well recognized across the world in post-colonial societies.
We have therefore settled for ranting and raving when clearly there is little which can be done one month before the two houses of Parliament come together to settle on a new president who will take office and operate on the same basis that her predecessors have.
Now the aimless, sterile and often aggravated rows about the need for change are fine for whichever government is in office. Such a government, like the present one and those before, does not bother one bit. It has the majority and is assured that its candidate for the office will be placed in the presidential chair when the joint chambers sit as the Electoral College.
In the instant case, the incumbent is not worried and probably has no intention of engaging in the discussion; it will have its way; it will implant its presidential choice in the president’s chair and that will be that.
Unless there is an overwhelming desire, backed by action to force change, not merely how the president is placed in office, but the many other anomalies which are said to exist with the constitutional provisions of the present frame, then the chatter is quite useless.