The People's Partnership was a formidable political project, but it never won real political power. In my view, it failed on its own terms to build a new Trinidad And Tobago. It was a good move, a clever move that sought , on the surface at least, to bring everybody together and to end the awful race war that we have been suffering from since the infamous "recalcitrant minority" speech of what feels like a million years ago. Let's call a spade a spade: if you are Black/African you are expected to vote for the PNM; if you are Indian you are expected to vote for the UNC and it has been that way at least since 1961 and before.
But the PP (People's Partnership) Government was dominated by the Indian UNC and within a very short time afterwards most people felt that it had betrayed the sentiment of yearning for a better and more equitable State in which the only thing that mattered was whether you were a citizen or not, and not your race. The PP Government did a lot of good things. Certainly, they proved to be far better managers of the economy than Dr. Rowley's Government, even on it's best days, has proven to be. But the PP Government failed to deal with a press that was always biased in favour of the PNM nor did it succeed in a fairer or more equitable distribution of wealth. It's relations with the trade unions could have been better and there was always the lingering scent of corruption. To be fair, most people also believe that this present PNM Government is also very corrupt, but that is another story. And the argument that "you t'ief more than me' or 'dem is more corrupt' (whoever 'dem' might be) is also irrelevant to this post.
The PP Government failed to democratize the civil service so that it would operate more fairly and (perhaps more importantly) be SEEN to operate more fairly. Old systems that allowed any manner of ills (ranging from nepotism to corruption and everything in between) were left untouched and those that the PP Government did try to tackle were not changed enough so that when the PNM came back to power it was 'business as usual' all over again.
Real political power comes from having the support of a majority of the people. The PP Government lost that support very early on in it's tenure. Perhaps it was the fault of the non Indians in the Cabinet who having no real political following of their own and riding on the back of the country's urgent, but badly articulated desire to create a better place, got 'high on their own supply' and behaved as though they themselves were so very important?
Whatever the cause was, the fact is that fairly soon after their victory it became apparent to the population that the PP Government was really a UNC Government in a not very good disguise. And this is definitely not what people voted for.
So? Where are we today? We have on the one hand a Government that only the most rabid and/or racial persons think or believe or can argue it to be competent and on the other hand we have an Opposition that has retreated back to its racial base. And then we have an incompetent and biased media that fails dismally either to ask relevant questions or to report the facts of what is going on at any particular time. Then we have a most incompetent Commissioner of Police who appears to be under the control of the politicians ("appears" being the operative word in that sentence) and under whose watch violent crime has been rising seemingly uncontrollably.
But most people whether they are Black or Indian want things to change. Most people want to see an end to the racial divide and most people are desperately hoping that a 'knight in shining armor' will come and save them. The truth is that most people are not racist and do not buy into the racial claptrap that is spewed forth not so surreptitiously on both sides. At the moment, both sides are simply appealing to their respective African or Indian bases. The UNC is hoping that enough of those on the fence will 'smell the coffee' and return them to power and the PNM is praying that despite the multiple screwups so far, that enough of their base will hold to keep them in power and that people will forget how bad things really are.
Does this mean that we shouldn't try again? No. It simply means that the PP Government failed but it's cause and the sentiments behind it's formation were both noble. We should try again ... and again, until we get it right!
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