WHY IS DR. ROWLEY GOING TO WASHINGTON?

 So Keith Rowley, the Prime Minister of Trinidad & Tobago, has flown off rather suddenly to Washington on an unannounced trip. As to why he is going to Washington at this time and who he is going to meet, is not in the public domain;  neither is what he hopes to accomplish  while he is there.

While it is very easy to criticize any leader of a democracy for failing to inform his/her people as to why he/she feels that he/she has to travel and not explaining in full what he/she hopes to accomplish by an apparently sudden trip, one of the nice things about a democracy is that we are all free to speculate on any action or actions of our leaders even when (as in this instant case) they choose  not to give us any information other than "I am going To X".

But it is fairly easy to "read the tea leaves" as to why the Prime Minister has chosen to travel now and it can be summed up in two words: Dragon Gas.

In order to understand the problem it is necessary to look across the Gulf of Paria and  at what is taking place in nearby Venezuela. That country's Supreme Court has recently disqualified the leading (and very popular) opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado. The problem here is that Venezuela's Supreme Court is stuffed with President Maburro's cronies (I refuse to call him Maduro; Maburro suits him much better). Now, Maburro had given an undertaking that the Presidential elections due this year would be free and fair. In return, the United States had lifted some of its sanctions. But Maburro controls the Supreme Court. What he says goes, and, as we say in T&T, who vex 'lorse'! And he doesn't want anybody opposing him who might have the remotest chance of beating him. So it is crystal clear that Venezuela's Supreme Court does whatever he wants.

Now that Ms. Machado has been barred from contesting the elections, it is quite clear that Maburro is not going to trust the Venezuelan electorate and that the Donkey will simply revert to what he has always done: cheating at the elections.

So? How does this affect us in good old T&T? If the USA decides to reimpose sanctions the Dragon Gas deal that Messrs. Rowley &Co. are pinning their hopes on could well be under sanction again. So it makes sense for Dr. Rowley to fly to Washington to try and get the Americans to hold their hands and do nothing that might affect our economy which is presently tanking.

The problem is that Dr. Rowley is publicly on record as effectively being on the Donkey's side. The best that he can hope for therefore is that the Americans say that they won't do anything adverse to T&T's interests and thus will not interfere with our own upcoming elections, which would effectively mean that the Dragon Gas deal will be allowed to go forward. The Americans will look at this and determine what exactly is in their best interests (and not T&T's). What they decide to do will determine whether the Dragon Gas deal will go forward or not.

In the meantime, expect more political machinations on this particular matter -  from everybody!

WHY WE NEED CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM - PART TWO

 As I've said in my previous post, what we have in Trinidad & Tobago is a 'party-led' as opposed to a 'people-led', democracy. By that I mean that people generally vote for a particular political party and not for the individual candidates who are making up the political party's list of wannabe parliamentarians. On top of that,  people tend to vote for the particular party of their choice because they like a particular leader, or don't like, who the 'other' party has as a leader.  And they understand that a vote for "X" is really a vote for leader "Y".

If you look at this problem dispassionately you will quickly come to the conclusion that our political system doesn't really reflect the principle of 'one man/woman - one vote', but really a system whereby control of the country is being handed over to a relatively small number of people on BOTH sides.

So? How can we fix this? My proposal is that we scrap the present system which allows the leader of the winning side to call an election at any time within  any given five year period  and have a fixed day for elections. Next, I would abolish all local government as well as the Tobago House of Assembly. For crying out loud, the mayor of Miami presides over a larger land area and  more people than the whole of T&T! Then I would divide the present 41 seats in the Lower House in two and make it so that we have 82 representatives who would be full time workers as opposed to the part time workers that we have now. These 82 representatives would take over the duties and responsibilities of the local governments in their areas or districts in addition to their Parliamentary duties. As such, they would obviously have to have a staff in order to support them. Some of the staff could be political appointments,

The present system which has created the Tobago House of Assembly effectively makes Tobago a self-governing colony of Trinidad. Under my proposal, Tobago would have a block of four representatives, or a vote in the Lower House of just about five percent. Because (amongst other things) the Lower House would have to approve budgets in order for the representatives to have money for their areas, the Tobago reps would effectively have more say over what money Tobago gets than it does now.

Finally, these representatives would face the polls on a fixed day (eg., the first Monday in September) every two years.  This short time would mean that if the representative did not perform  but was a favourite  of his/her political leader then  a die-hard supporter of that particular party could effectively force the removal of the rep by voting against him/her. After all, it would only be for two years and this would effectively cause to be loosened the particular party's grip on power and force it to perform or get out.

But two years is a very short time for any meaningful policies to take effect. So, I would have an elected Senate made up of, say, 41 Senators from the existing 41 constituencies serving for six years with one third facing the polls every two years. So, if somebody from the majority party decides that we need a law, say, that all men should wear green pants, and that party's candidates go down to (an unsurprising) defeat on this issue in the Lower house, those Senators facing re-election in a short two years hence are going to drop this 'green pants' law or face certain defeat.

Then I would have a President elected once every four years but who can't be removed if his party loses a vote in either the Senate or the Lower House.

Obviously this proposal is not original and would need a lot of 'tweaking'. It is not a perfect solution. Maybe, there isn't such a thing as a 'perfect solution'. But it is put to you as a way to solve the problem and to try and create more of a 'people-led' Democracy. What are your proposals?

WHY WE NEED CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM

 I have often wondered: are we in T&T really a practicing democracy? Last time I looked a democracy was defined as being 'of the people, by the people and for the people'. But it seems that what we are getting is a 'party-led' democracy as opposed to a 'people-led' one. In other words, if you want to rule this country, you don't need to worry too much about what the people think, you only have to worry about what the people in YOUR party think. Take control of your political party and you can end up as the prime minister. And you don't have to be a genius to realize that I am talking about both sides of the political divide. Most people vote 'party' and very few vote for individuals - no matter how incompetent the party nominee might be or how competent the individual might be.

If ever there was a case for constitutional reform this is probably the most telling argument. What exists now could never have been the intention of the framers of the Constitution; the idea was always let the people have the power - one man/woman, one vote! But it isn't like that. The peoples' needs and wants are always secondary to what the party thinks and wants. And by 'party' I mean BOTH of the two main political parties in T&T. Can we fix this? Maybe. But it would mean putting in place a system of government that would reduce the power of the two parties - something that both sides would resist tooth and nail because it is always easier to preach to a small number than it is to preach to a large one. And any system that reduces the power of the political parties is obviously a big 'no-no'.

I do have some ideas on how to do this, but I won't give them now. I'll wait until you have digested what I have said here. If you agree then read my next blog. If you don't agree that we need to change our Constitution then don't bother reading it for you won't agree with any of my ideas. But pay attention to to my central point: we need to transition away from a party-led democracy to a people-led one.

I have always been taught that the first step towards fixing a problem is to define it.  You might need a paragraph, a chapter or even a whole book to explain the sentence. But if you can't define it in one sentence then you really don't understand the problem- or you may not have one at all.

IS THE CRIME SITUATION GETTING BETTER?

 IT IS sometimes very difficult to understand exactly what the TT Prime Minister, Dr. Rowley, means when he makes certain comments. For example, he said that there had been 29 fewer murders that there had been in a previous time period and that this therefore was evidence that his handpicked Commissioner of Police was being effective in her controlling crime in this country and that his confidence in his Minister of National Security is justified.

Well, that is all well and good, and might well be true. But how are we to know? The statistics on crime are not published or are not easily available. I suppose that we ought to be grateful to Dr. Rowley & Co.  that the most awful crime statistic seems to be going down (according to them). Why this is so is left unexplained. Were there more arrests? More convictions? What exactly has caused this particular statistic to drop by 5 percent? I suppose that the point is that it is dropping and why it is going down is because of "improved policing". But the message clearly is that we don't need or deserve any kind of explanation. Put up and shut up, is the message.

But If that is so, why does everybody that I talk to feel more afraid now than before? Let me put it this way: 8 years ago everybody knew somebody who knew somebody who had been a victim of some sort of crime. Today it is a lot closer: everybody knows somebody who has been a victim of some sort of crime. Check it yourself and see. Nobody is going to say that they don't know anybody who has been a victim. Now, if that means that there has been an improvement in the suppression of crime that would be most surprising indeed. On this fact it is not possible to say that things are improving even if the actual murder rate is going down. (By the way, what exactly counts as a murder? How is this particular statistic calculated? Is murder defined as an unlawful killing? Does it include unlawful police killings? Or is it that we simply don't deserve any type of explanation at all?)

One reads in the newspapers and sees on television our leaders led by the Crime Minister and backed up by his underlings saying in effect that they are working very hard to contain the problem and have been seeing some light at the end of this particularly long and dark tunnel. This is in direct contrast with how people are seeing (and feeling) the situation. But the media is soft on the Government and collectively they are not critical - although to be fair, there are  many more critical articles appearing than there used to be. Question: is this last fact evidence that the media is slowly coming around to the realization that the crime situation is indeed getting worse and not better as is being claimed by the Crime Minister & Co.? Indeed, is the crime situation really getting better?

 Below is what I thought was a most relevant post from the Los Angeles Times for T&T. I thought of paraphrasing it but decided to post it in full. The argument basically is that our crime wave (as well as Palo Alto's) is/was fueled by poor economic circumstances. It is an argument that resonates with me.

January 10, 2024   View in browser Cars pass a Facebook sign in East Palo Alto in 2021. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) By Ryan Fonseca Good morning. It’s Wednesday, Jan. 10. Here’s what you need to know to start your day. How East Palo Alto went from U.S. “murder capital” to murder-free California’s biggest winter storm so far is on its way 10 under-the-radar spas to rejuvenate in hot water in and around L.A. And here’s today’s e-newspaper From U.S. ‘murder capital’ to zero homicides In 1992, the small Bay Area city of East Palo Alto made national headlines as the “murder capital” of the U.S. At the time, 42 people were murdered in the city, which had a population of 24,000. That works out to a murder rate of 175 homicides for every 100,000 residents. “Officials attributed the upswing in homicides to an increasingly violent drug trade that lures buyers from throughout the Bay Area,” former Times reporter Jenifer Warren wrote at the time. “More than half of the homicides were narcotics-related, statistics show, and 70% of the victims were involved in criminal activity when they were killed.” Just over three decades later, the city is making headlines again — this time as a success story. After years of declining killings, East Palo Alto ended 2023 with an important local milestone: zero murders. So how did the small city go from murder capital to murder-free? Times reporter Brittny Mejia spoke with city and police officials past and present, along with community leaders, to find out. As she explained this week, “a complicated mix of circumstances” helped reverse the trend. One reason that’s been floated: gentrification. The Bay Area’s tech boom brought new residents, raised housing prices and pushed out some longtime residents. But as Brittny reported, community members and leaders in East Palo Alto “argue that poverty and crime don’t necessarily go hand in hand.” “They point to increased development since they earned the grim title of murder capital, including an Ikea and a Four Seasons hotel,” she wrote. “Also: more job opportunities, programs for youth and community policing. And time.” In the wake of its 1992 designation, the short-term response was more cops and more arrests. The city more than doubled its police presence as the county and nearby cities sent officers to help. That crackdown helped bring the number of murders down to four in 1993. But city leaders held that more policing alone was not a long-term solution, Brittny noted. They took the view that true progress would be achieved through economic development, better job opportunities for residents and a concerted effort to build community trust with law enforcement. A newly developed shopping center hired local residents. Local nonprofit and faith-based groups launched after-school programs that kept young people off the streets. Some residents went out in groups to intimidate drug dealers and take photos of cars driving into neighborhoods to buy drugs. Community members shared those photos and other information with police. In the 17 years between 2006 and 2022, homicides in East Palo Alto numbered in the single digits. Then, in the early moments of 2024, city officials celebrated their new milestone — and they hope to keep it that way. “It really is a testament to the commitment of the community to fix itself,” Sharifa Wilson, who was mayor of East Palo Alto in 1992, told Brittny. “The fact that we were labeled the homicide capital gave us an attention that we needed, and then we took that attention and turned it into something positive. If you give us lemons, we’re gonna make lemonade.”

POLITICAL MUSINGS

 WE ARE still about 19 months, legally, from when the next election in T&T is due. Clearly, so far out it is not really possible to make any kind of accurate prediction about what will happen. The truth is that as things stand right now, any number can play. But it might be helpful to look at some straws in the wind.

The first 'straw' is definitely crime. Apart from the obvious incompetence of both the Minister of National Security and his hand-picked Commissioner of Police as well as a climbing (and seemingly out of control) murder rate, just about everybody in this country has either been a victim of crime or knows someone who has been a victim.  Every single day there is a report in the newspapers of a murder or a robbery or of a beating of somebody. How this will play out at the polls is anybody's guess, but this problem is causing some PNM core support to slip. What is interesting though, is that this support is by and large not going over to the Opposition UNC but seems instead to be just "parked" up. The UNC has so far been unable to convince anybody (except for its core supporters) that it can and will do a better job on this issue.

The second "straw" is the economy. While most voters understand that a large problem with our economy is that just about everything that we eat is imported and people do understand that a sizeable portion of the current inflation is imported and therefore, not the Government's fault. But many people have lost their jobs and the cost of everything is going up. We all read about the price of oil going down sometimes, but our gasoline prices never do. People notice these things, especially when times are tough - as they are now. As it is, too many people have lost their jobs for the PNM to feel comfortable.

The third "straw" is that people generally are not enamored with either political Party or their respective leaders.  The UNC has not addressed this problem, and while it seems that they are trying to do something about it and are aware that it exists the UNC hierarchy seems to be banking on the fact that the "fed upness" with the PNM is such that a sufficient number of PNM voters will simply stay home and not vote, while most of their supporters will turn out and vote.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the opinion of Dr. Rowley generally is not a good one. A sizeable proportion of the population do not seem to hold him in very high regard. Unfortunately for the UNC, the same can be said of their leader.  Whether either or both can fix this problem remains to be seen. There is a lot of time left  and anything can happen. Meanwhile, there are a number of (for want of a better word) 'fringe' parties that so far haven't been able to make a note. They have all been campaigning and crying out for change, but so far none of them have set fire to the population in a way that they can seriously be considered as a viable alternative, although, to be fair, many of their criticisms are most valid. What they can (and probably will) do is to take enough votes away in a marginal constituency and thus hand the election to one side or the other. Both the PNM and the UNC are aware of this particular problem but neither has done anything about it  -  yet! 

I have been making a joke that because of this situation that I'm going to form my own political Party. People take me seriously until they hear my name for the new Party: the Free Democratic Action Trinidad & Tobago Party, or FDATT for short. Everyone who has heard the name of my new party says that they will vote for it!

HONOURABLE MEN

 I HAD PLANNED on writing about the state of the country after Christmas and the New Year had passed. But after learning of the death of Basdeo Panday on January 1st I decided that for the first post of this year I would  write a few words about him before resuming my various musings and commentaries.

I have read with great interest and taken not little pleasure in the many accolades that I have seen about the great man. And yes, Basdeo Panday was a great man. So to paraphrase William Shakespeare, this post is about burying Panday, not to praise him. And continuing with the Shakespearean analogy I would say that "the evil men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with ..." Panday. 

Our noble Prime Minister, Keith Rowley, in referring to Mr. Panday called him "an actor, Lawyer, labour Leader and Politician". Nowhere did Dr. Rowley refer to Mr. Panday as a former Prime Minister although this omission  was glaring to many and obvious to both sides of the political divide. But, again paraphrasing Shakespeare, Dr. Rowley is an honourable man. So if he neglected to mention in his eulogy that Mr. Panday was once a Prime Minister that sin of omission can be forgiven because he (Dr. Rowley) is indeed an honourable man. Indeed, Dr. Rowley's Government has ordered that the nation's flags be flown at half mast as  a symbol of mourning for Mr. Panday, and has also ordered that the State will meet the Panday family's funeral expenses as well as a State funeral for his predecessor.

Dr. Rowley is an honourable man and will doubtless mention these actions as evidence that he is an honourable man. Paraphrasing Shakespeare again, I am not writing here to criticize any honourable persons but simply to mourn for Basdeo Panday. That Mr. Panday would have had a suitable comment concerning Dr. Rowley's omission is beyond doubt, but he would never have hesitated had the shoe been on the other foot,  to mention that his successor was once a Prime Minister and would have recognized him as such. But then, Basdeo Panday was indeed an honourable man.