THE PRESIDENTIAL MESS

 

Just when you think that the politicians can't get any lower, they conspire to prove you wrong - again. Let's look at the mess of that debate that never was - the one dealing with the removal of the President. And don't worry, I'm not going to quote law at you or this or that section of the Constitution or the difference between a procedural motion or another type of motion. Nor am I going to give a 'learned' opinion on what the law says or what is the correct way to interpret it.

No. I'm just going to look at the whole mess and see if it could have been handled in another way.

In order to do that we need to start from the beginning. (I was always taught that if you want to understand a problem you always need to go back to the beginning.) Everybody seems to agree that the trouble started about a year ago when the Prime Minister (Rowley) let it be known that he had 'lost faith' in the Commissioner of Police (Griffith).  There were a lot of harsh words said in public passing between the two men, but it all seemed to die down and the country more or less went back to normal.

But CoP Griffith's term was ending this year (I can't remember exactly when, but I think it was around August). In any case, although the CoP's term was ending, the Police Service Commission (PolSC) did nothing to start the process moving to re-appoint either Mr. Griffith or to appoint somebody else until very late in the day. And here is where it starts to get messy:

The PolSC sent a letter to the President with three nominees for the CoP post. Now, under the Constitution the President in this case has no discretion but MUST simply forward the letter to Parliament. But before the letter is forwarded by the President to the Parliament she rather inexplicably returns it to the PolSC and effectively tells the Commission to think again. Here it becomes more than a little murky, but rumours start almost immediately that a 'high level public official' went to see the President and told her NOT to send the list to the Parliament. Incidentally, we don't know whose names were on the list but rumour hath it that Mr. Griffith's name was one of the three. We also don't know who the 'high level public official' was but the rumour is that it was no less a person than the Prime Minister himself. But neither the Prime Minister nor the President is talking so we may never know. The most that the Prime Minister has said is that he talks to the President about lots of things lots of times - which ain't exactly an admission of anything. Why he wouldn't come out and say 'it was me' or 'it was not me' is a question that is left just hanging there.  Of course, those who don't like the Prime Minister are saying that he won't say because he knows that he was wrong to interfere. Those who do like him simply dismiss it and say that it isn't relevant.

But the President rather curiously says that she returned the letter from the PolSC but doesn't say who asked her to return it or whether the request was in writing - to which any thinking person can only say 'hmmmmm'! Why would she ( a lawyer and a former Court of Appeal Judge) do something like that that is so clearly unconstitutional? In any case, who was this 'high level public official'? Was it in fact the Prime Minister? You see why it gets murky.

Then the Leader of the Opposition files a motion in the Parliament essentially asking the Parliament to remove the President from her office. That this motion was likely to be defeated  was clear from the outset, but that was never the point. Enter the erstwhile Speaker of the House who takes it upon herself (for reasons that could make lawyers rich by arguing them all the way to the Privy Council) to order that there was to be no debate on the motion.

What exactly would have been the harm in having the highest forum in the land debating the motion was never explained. All we were told was that the Speaker had decided that this was the right way to go and that she was banning all debate. "Vote and Go", was one headline in a daily newspaper.

Nobody  has bothered to explain exactly why a debate on this issue should not have been allowed. The answer to this question is hidden under a deadweight of legalese that would be the kind of stuff that late night comedians  love to sink their teeth into. So what? let us assume (but not accept) that the Speaker's decision not to allow debate was right in law, was it right for the country? We tend to speak about the Presidency in hushed, almost reverential tones that are oddly reminiscent of the 'good old days'  when any criticism of the Governor or the King was considered treasonous. But the defenders of the President essentially argue that there are two rules concerning the President: Rule One is that the president is never wrong; Rule Two is that when the President is wrong, refer back to Rule One.

We should have had a debate - even if there is legal authority to say 'no'.  The Speaker was wrong not to do so. And let's face it, the Opposition mishandled the whole imbroglio from start to finish. They could have, and should have, gone through all the possible scenarios and been prepared for whatever the Speaker threw their way. . But their reaction suggests that they were taken by surprise. The motion could have and should have been better drafted. The Speaker has badly damaged the appearance of independence so necessary for one in her position. And the Prime Minister has come across as someone who is quite comfortable with obfuscatory comments that tend to hide the truth more than letting the people know exactly what was happening or had happened. Finally, the President has also badly damaged her Presidency by her actions as well as her rather pathetic attempts at covering up.

Put another way, none of the main players in this little 'play' have come out of this unscathed. They all stink - some more than others.

THE PREMATURE ENDING OFTHE BUDGET DEBATE

 In Trinidad & Tobago there are 41 Parliamentary seats. The ruling People's National Movement (PNM) has 22 seats and the opposition UNC has 19 seats. An argument has erupted over whose fault it was that the Budget debate - arguably the most important debate in a Parliamentary year - was truncated and brought to a premature close. My answer is that it is the fault of both sides. We can argue over who might be more to blame than the other, but the truth is that both sides are to blame. And we (the people) are the losers.

Let's look at it as clearly as possible: a Budget debate is supposed to be about a government accounting to the people through the Parliament what it spent and took in over the last fiscal year and what it proposes to do/spend in the coming fiscal year. Therefore, it is a most serious debate and not one in which one should play games. If an opposition does not want to partake in the debate, for whatever reason, the Ministers should still account for their respective Ministries. Unfortunately, a lot of them didn't. One gets the most unfortunate impression that the Government was more interested in 'scoring points' than in accounting to the people. Either that or they were simply too incompetent to give an accounting.

As for the Opposition, while it is true that the Government has superior numbers and they were obviously trying to 'hold their fire power' for when the Ministers deigned to speak they could and should have put in a speaker with instructions to him/her to lambaste the Government for not putting in their Ministers to speak and risk being criticized. (Instead of Ministers, a lot of backbenchers spoke who seemed to delight more in politics than in getting a proper accounting for the people that they are supposed to represent.) It wouldn't have been difficult to do that and the Government's rather cowardly action could and should have been exposed. But the Opposition was also obviously more interested in 'scoring points' rather than looking out for Trinidad & Tobago. That they chose instead to 'play games' is deplorable. Two, or even three wrongs can never make a right. And the Opposition was wrong to allow the Government to get off the hook like that. And so I say that the time has really come to look at our whole Parliamentary system and fix the obvious problems before they get worse. And believe me, there is no 'bottom'. Things can get worse. (But that is a whole other discussion. I do have some ideas which I will put out later for discussion).

Right now we have a system that encourages division in the society rather than creating a country where everyone feels that he/she has a stake in it. But until that happens (or snow falls in Trinidad) we can at least be honest with ourselves and tell BOTH sides to stop playing the fool and get down to representing us. Because right now we are being very poorly represented by BOTH sides. I could write a book on everything that BOTH sides are doing wrong. Perhaps (despite the failures of the NAR and COP) the time really has come for a third political party?

TROUBLE FOR OUR DEMOCRACY

 We really do deserve an incompetent government. Yesterday (Saturday) Roodal Moonilal made some very damning accusations against the Attorney General. Basically, the Opposition MP accused Mr. Al Rawi of misleading Parliament. He backed up his accusations with facts and figures.  To my astonishment the Speaker then said that she would consider what he had said and would give her ruling later as to whether he (the Attorney General) should be referred to the Privileges Committee of Parliament.

Unbelievable, I thought. But then I consoled myself by the thought that at the very least this would be headlines in the Sunday papers. It wasn't! In the Express the story was relegated to a minor headline, and in the Guardian Mr. Moonilal's accusations weren't even reported, but the headline was that the Prime Minister was backing his Attorney General over the indemnity issue. The Guardian also in a minor story simply reported that the Attorney General was being accused of making "false and misleading statements" in Parliament  on Friday 4th October. In none of the papers was there a laying out of Mr. Moonilal's accusations. As a result, the average person will have difficulty in forming any sort of reasoned opinion.

So? Why is this a big thing? Let's start from the beginning: Parliament is the very top of our democratic system. Misleading Parliament, whether deliberately or not, is very, very serious and all citizens should look at this accusation with great concern. Because, if the accusations (or any part thereof) are true and there is absolutely no sanction it will mean that we do not have a democracy and are being ruled by a dictatorship. That ain't good at all! 

So when the newspapers seem to play down the accusations against the Attorney General and when lying to the Parliament is not seen as a "big thing" by the 'Fourth Estate' (the media) it is not unreasonable to assume that we are in deep "doo-doo". 

The average person will not worry about this. 'That's politics', he/she will say. Unfortunately, it is not 'just politics'.  When Hitler rose to power and started targeting the Jews there were very few people who worried about it. 'I'm not Jewish so that doesn't affect me', was the prevailing sentiment. One world war later together with six million Jews murdered we have a clear example of why 'just politics' simply isn't good enough.

If Mr. Al Rawi is guilty of what Mr. Moonilal accused him of doing and (more importantly) he lied to the Parliament about it then as a matter of urgency he ought to be dealt with in a most serious manner. And the Speaker should be aware that many people will view her delay in making a ruling immediately on Mr. Moonilal's excellent presentation was because she wanted to liaise with the political leaders in the Government as to how she should deal with this. While this impression may not be accurate, certainly there are a lot of people who believe that it is. And that's the point! She should be jealously guarding the independence of her office. Sadly, there are many who believe that she is not doing so.

Perception, in politics, is often reality, and this is certainly the perception of way too many people.

As for the print media, I guess they don't really care. They are making money and who cares if they are biased or not? 

No. We are in deep trouble and at the end of the day we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

THE LOST OPPOSITION OF TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

 Keith Rowley's government has been a complete failure almost from the word 'go'. But the opposition UNC hasn't offered a convincing alternative. While it can be argued with justification that Rowley's PNM government has had a lot of bad luck come its way (the fall in oil prices, the COVID 19 pandemic, etc.), the truth is that their handling of the various crises that hit them have been so badly botched that most ugly and what should be most unnecessary suspicions have arisen. Take for example, the A&V oil scandal. The truth is that most people believe that this was or is a cover up of mammoth proportions and that somebody somewhere took a huge bribe. Is this true? Certainly, there is no clear cut evidence showing that it is, but a lot of people will say 'hey, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck you are going to have to prove to me that it is really just a pussy cat'. And Dr. Rowley has admitted that the head of that company is a good friend. Curry duck anyone?

Then there has been the Government's handling of the pandemic. Certainly (according to the Government) they have been reporting recently the number of COVID cases and deaths, but was this so from the beginning? We didn't cancel Carnival 2020 and then we had a general election in August 2020. Only later the general election did we start to get reports about so many people being sick with the virus and then so many people having to go to hospital and that the hospitals were being overwhelmed and so on. But why does a right thinking person get the impression th we weren't told the truth from the beginning and why is the Minister of Health surprised to discover that a lot of people simply don't believe a thing that he says? Because, if you check back between February and August of last year you will find that this virus was certainly not on the Government's front burner - or it didn't appear to be. And Mr. Deyalsingh cannot be surprised if people believe him to be incompetent.

Then you have the terrible imbroglio with the Police Service Commission (PSC) which is still going on. Apparently some high up person went to see the President about this problem. But nobody seems to know who that person was nor what was discussed. And all the while you have Gary Griffith sitting on the side lines like a leopard waiting to pounce. And there are many, many other questions coming out of this.  But it is the latest scandal and it is still occupying the front pages, so there is probably a lot more to come.

There is really only space to highlight these three matters. Each one could take a whole book to discuss thoroughly and to present possible solutions and/or theories. Certainly, these are not the only scandals that we should be concerned about. 

But the point here is that by all that is normal the Opposition UNC should be riding high in the polls and they are not. Why? Maybe it is because they do not attack the Government with anything remotely resembling credibility nor do they deal frontally with issues (such as the radical foreign exchange shortage) with anything that offers hope to a beleaguered and battered population as to how they might fix things. It is almost as if they are saying 'vote for us. We can do better than these characters. Certainly, we can't do worse!'

They say that a country gets the government that it deserves. But I really feel that we've been hit with a double whammy:  a completely awful Government and a hopeless Opposition.  We don't deserve the two together.