Ra­mona Ram­di­al

One of the first house rules we learn as MPs is al­ways to take off your mic when not con­tribut­ing to a de­bate. Dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young made the novice mis­take of spew­ing ho­mo­pho­bic slurs along with sex traf­fick­ing ref­er­ences, di­rect­ed at the Op­po­si­tion, in­to a “hot mic.” Did he do it on pur­pose? Min­is­ters Im­bert, Deyals­ingh, and De No­bri­ga were close to Min­is­ter Young dur­ing his out­burst but on­ly the Health Min­is­ter made any ef­fort to re­strain him. The House Speak­er would lat­er de­scribe his de fac­to broad­cast as “un­wit­ting” but was it re­al­ly? Didn’t a gig­gling Min­is­ter Im­bert ask “who leave de mic on?” on­ly AF­TER the in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments? Is this what the West­min­ster sys­tem pro­motes in our coun­try? Does it have any­thing to do with the strength of the Op­po­si­tion (or lack there­of)? Our West­min­ster sys­tem cre­ates an ad­ver­sar­i­al en­vi­ron­ment in the Par­lia­ment and what should be friend­ly fire has de­scend­ed in­to nasty ad hominem at­tacks.

Twen­ty years ago, then a min­is­ter in a Patrick Man­ning cab­i­net, Dr Kei­th Row­ley launched a tea cup and tv re­mote con­trol at then MP Chan­dresh Shar­ma in the par­lia­ment’s tea room. Years lat­er, then PM Man­ning would place it on the Hansard that MP Row­ley was a “wa­jang” and a “rag­ing bull.” That same Dr Row­ley would go on to re­place him as po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM and (yet un­de­feat­ed) Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go. There is now talk about Min­is­ter Young suc­ceed­ing Dr Row­ley as PNM po­lit­i­cal leader and as prime min­is­ter.

So, was Min­is­ter Young’s in­dis­cre­tion just a cal­cu­lat­ed dis­play of “wa­jang” be­hav­iour a la Dr Row­ley? Will it en­dear him to the PNM faith­ful? The PNM’s Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West con­stituen­cy did not de­lay in is­su­ing a re­lease sup­port­ing their MP. Does the rest of the PNM feel sim­i­lar­ly? Are they now con­vinced that MP Young can fill PM Row­ley’s “Bad­john” boots? How will the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion re­ceive po­ten­tial prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date Young in the af­ter­math?

Min­is­ter Young was giv­en a dress­ing down by House Speak­er An­nisette-George in Par­lia­ment last Thurs­day when she treat­ed his “misog­y­nis­tic and ho­mo­pho­bic” ut­ter­ances, as well as their “crim­i­nal in­sin­u­a­tions”. She de­mand­ed that he apol­o­gise to the House. Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Lee al­so moved a mo­tion of priv­i­lege against MP Young. How­ev­er, Min­is­ter Young’s apol­o­gy pre­ced­ed MP Lee’s mo­tion and both were heard by Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde. He ruled that the apol­o­gy was suf­fi­cient and that the in­ter­ven­tion of the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee was not re­quired. As such, MP Young es­caped with a slap on the wrist, if so much.

I think that par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege abuse has been oc­cur­ring for a long time, if not since our ear­li­est par­lia­ment. I have al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in many ver­bal vol­leys with many of my for­mer col­leagues while in gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion but I al­ways en­sured that my mic was off! Our Par­lia­men­tary sys­tem is ad­ver­sar­i­al and the gov­ern­ing par­ty was nev­er go­ing to haul its po­ten­tial next po­lit­i­cal leader be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

If the Op­po­si­tion doesn’t like it, all they have to do is win the next gen­er­al elec­tion. If the cit­i­zen­ry doesn’t like it, they have to force the po­lit­i­cal par­ties to com­mit to mean­ing­ful con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. So noth­ing has come of this oth­er than min­is­ter Young’s fur­ther ad­vance­ment as PM Row­ley’s street­fight­ing pro­tégé.

Per­haps the Op­po­si­tion could have brought a Mo­tion of No Con­fi­dence in PM Row­ley’s Gov­ern­ment in­stead. They did not and so they will be fur­ther per­se­cut­ed on the hus­tings in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign if they do not make rel­e­vant ad­just­ments to the per­son­nel they will of­fer to the cit­i­zen­ry in GE 2025. A mere apol­o­gy for un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage is one thing but what about the ideas that have al­ready been im­plant­ed and cul­ti­vat­ed in the minds of the elec­torate?

At the time of this writ­ing, the PNM’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil has not yet an­nounced whether there will be a de­fer­ral of their in­ter­nal elec­tions or that the out­right can­cel­la­tion will stand. This move has stim­u­lat­ed talk of a snap elec­tion but PM Row­ley’s modus operan­di has al­ways been against such “Sobers’ de­c­la­ra­tion.” He has been hum­ming his swan­song but has not sung a note of it yet. He fan­cies his chances against the UNC as cur­rent­ly con­sti­tut­ed.

If the “UNC A” of­fer them­selves with noth­ing but cos­met­ic change, PM Row­ley will lead the PNM in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion firm in his be­lief that he can re­sign as PM and anoint his suc­ces­sor, there­by main­tain­ing his in­flu­ence for a few more years. It is not be­yond the realms of pos­si­bil­i­ty that he may not even both­er to re­tire. Per­haps we’ll see an­oth­er Kam­la vs Kei­th se­quel in 2030!

Mean­while, I note the love and sup­port be­ing re­ceived by Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mikela Pan­day, as she tours UNC heart­lands such as her for­mer Oropouche West con­stituen­cy. One man even asked her to come down to Siparia as she walked! UNC sup­port­ers want her back in the par­ty found­ed by her fa­ther, or even in a UNC/PF part­ner­ship and a gen­uine pur­suit of na­tion­al uni­ty will cer­tain­ly see Dr Row­ley belt­ing out that song he’s been teas­ing.