Ra­mona Ram­di­al

The 49th Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment con­fer­ence held from Ju­ly 6-8 in Ja­maica was not at­tend­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It would have been her first op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­assert her brand of Tri­ni woman pow­er in the re­gion since re­gain­ing the po­si­tion she last held in 2015.

Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers and Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der sub­sti­tut­ed for her. Min­is­ter Sobers ex­plained that the PM’s ab­sence was due to “press­ing na­tion­al mat­ters” but pro­vid­ed no de­tails. For­mer min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Amery Browne, sug­gest­ed that Trinidad and To­ba­go lost the op­por­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in a free move­ment arrange­ment de­vised by Bar­ba­dos, Be­lize, Do­mini­ca, and St Vin­cent & the Grenadines.

The Cari­com heads of gov­ern­ment signed the Mon­tego Bay De­c­la­ra­tion, which re­in­forced re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion and in­tel­li­gence shar­ing in com­bat­ing transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime. The sup­port of In­ter­pol and the OAS in the de­lib­er­a­tions was a key take­away in Cari­com’s recom­mit­ment to the CSME, as well as re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty. Would our Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence be in­ter­pret­ed as a lack of in­ter­est in Cari­com or their new ini­tia­tives? Were the brand-new min­is­ters able to give ad­e­quate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of our Gov­ern­ment’s For­eign and Se­cu­ri­ty poli­cies?

I be­lieve that Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spects Cari­com and that she would have en­dorsed the Mon­tego Bay De­c­la­ra­tion. I am al­so cer­tain that she will re­pose con­fi­dence in her UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers by se­lect­ing one of them to act as prime min­is­ter when next she has to ad­vance T&T’s stand­ing in a glob­al lead­er­ship fo­rum.

In a re­turn to the UNC’s Mon­day Night Fo­rum last week, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar, leader of the rul­ing UNC, an­nounced that she will be call­ing elec­tions for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader. That elec­tion was due in June ac­cord­ing to the UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion. Its de­lay is un­der­stand­able giv­en the re­cent Gen­er­al Elec­tion and the sub­se­quent set­tling in of the new UNC Gov­ern­ment. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the win­ning po­lit­i­cal leader, and no one in their right mind will chal­lenge her. As such, she will be re­elect­ed, un­op­posed.

How­ev­er, we will have an idea about PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s suc­ces­sion plan­ning when she next leaves the coun­try. Per­haps she will stand again in GE2030. It is doubt­ful that she will fol­low for­mer PM Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s los­ing play­book of foist­ing a suc­ces­sor out­side of in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions. In the mean­time, any­one in­ter­est­ed in suc­ceed­ing her as the leader of her par­ty should be busy con­vinc­ing the na­tion that they are the best MP and min­is­ter.

We must not for­get the 100,000 would-be PNM vot­ers who ab­stained in GE2025. I am cer­tain that the los­ing ex­am­ple of the de­posed PNM lead­er­ship has taught a valu­able les­son to the UNC. The UNC’s Na­tex elec­tions are due next year, though. Now that will be a far more in­ter­est­ing propo­si­tion. The con­ver­gence of the UNC po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship and Na­tex elec­tions in 2028 will be even more com­pelling.

The UNC Gov­ern­ment must be­ware of the re­newed PNM and the sleep­ing 100,000, some of whom may have been stirred by the re­cent CEPEP and Forestry fir­ings. In Op­po­si­tion, some­times all that a po­lit­i­cal par­ty does (or can do) is plot the down­fall of the gov­ern­ment.

Last Fri­day, the Women’s Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans of T&T (WPTT) host­ed the sec­ond co­hort of the YES Lead­er­ship De­bate se­ries. The young ladies were put through a rig­or­ous three months of in­tense train­ing and men­tor­ship, as they pre­pared to de­bate a mo­tion on hu­man traf­fick­ing. I was pleased once more to be part of the YES Lead­er­ship team, as we guid­ed them through to their im­pres­sive sim­u­lat­ed par­lia­men­tary de­bate on this im­por­tant is­sue. WPTT will con­tin­ue to work in the best in­ter­ests of our women and girls, with our main goal be­ing that of achiev­ing equal par­tic­i­pa­tion of our women in po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship. As the prime ex­em­plar of women’s lead­er­ship, I urge our Prime Min­is­ter to en­cour­age her MPs and min­is­ters to join and ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in WPTT.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, the pa­tron of the WPTT, re­cent­ly opined that crit­i­cism was lev­elled at her and the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors she ap­point­ed due to her gen­der. I don’t share the Pres­i­dent’s view here. Some of the crit­i­cism she re­ceived has come from UNC mem­bers. I doubt PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar will per­mit misog­y­nis­tic mes­sag­ing from with­in her Gov­ern­ment and par­ty. Opin­ions were shared by some who per­ceived po­lit­i­cal bias by the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors. How­ev­er, isn’t the Pres­i­dent “a crea­ture of the gov­ern­ment”? Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo was se­lect­ed by the de­posed PNM gov­ern­ment. When the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors give the gov­ern­ment a hard time in pass­ing leg­is­la­tion, some ac­tivists may em­ploy in­tim­ida­to­ry tac­tics. Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark has warned against such “ha­rass­ment, in­tim­i­da­tion or at­tempts to shame Sen­a­tors.”

This Gov­ern­ment can be­gin con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and look at re­mov­ing the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent from any doubt. With the co­op­er­a­tion of the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty’s two MPs, the Gov­ern­ment can ex­plore its ca­pa­bil­i­ties with more than a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty. In­stead of in­tim­i­da­tion, con­ver­sa­tion and leg­is­la­tion may bring mean­ing­ful prob­lem-solv­ing. If this is a bridge too far, per­haps there are oth­er ar­eas of con­cern the Gov­ern­ment would con­sid­er test­ing.

If we can’t get sig­nif­i­cant con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form all at once, maybe we could wel­come what is pos­si­ble and what is pro­gres­sive from with­in those pos­si­bil­i­ties.