Daly Bread: Why the PNM’s internal affairs are a matter of public interest

I have examined the surprise announcement that the People’s National Movement (PNM) convention and internal election scheduled for November 17 had been cancelled and the further announcement swiftly, but ambiguously, walking back the cancellation decision.

My view remains that any apparent suppression of democracy within the PNM is a matter of public interest.

There are, of course, strident PNM voices saying: “Stay out of PNM business.”

Interestingly, however, Minister Camille Robinson-Regis MP, a senior party figure, in the course of an attempt to smooth over the embarrassment of the two announcements, conceded that “the PNM is of great importance to Trinidad and Tobago and, therefore, (re-quoting the renowned CLR James) the internal life of the party cannot be separated from its public responsibilities.”

(See Trinidad Express of Friday, 25 October 2024, “In defence of PNM democracy”.)

I hope that the rest of the PNM hierarchy “gets the memo” that current events within the PNM are not merely PNM business, and here is another memo:

Comment on the relationship of the purportedly cancelled PNM convention and internal election to the obvious leadership struggle to succeed the current Prime Minister as political leader of the PNM, a Pandora’s Box which he has himself opened, will not go away.

Displays of anger in denouncing those who do comment on the state of “the internal life” of the PNM are useless.

I have already put forward a reason why democracy in the PNM is important, namely that some of the PNM’s current ghastly ministerial failures need to face the democratic reckoning of the PNM membership.

Not surprisingly, National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds reportedly tasted rejection last Wednesday. Minister Robinson-Regis described the decision to cancel the convention as “a strategic decision”.

For whose benefit is it strategic — the ghastly failures?

I re-emphasise that, in the public interest, the PNM needs to offer several fresh candidates, particularly because our choices as an electorate are likely to be limited by the staleness and previous rejections of the cling-on leadership of the now openly split Opposition United National Congress (UNC).

There is current early speculation that one likely outcome of the cumulative effect of the circumstances self-inflicting the split UNC is that it may lose some of the seats the party currently holds and that PNM may win a three-fifths majority of the 41 seats to be contested (a special majority vote victory).

That speculation is subject to provisos. Can the PNM hold on to the two Tobago seats in the national House of Representatives, having been trounced in the last Tobago House of Assembly elections?

Another proviso is whether the PNM will be harmed by regular supporters staying home in disgust at the deplorable public safety situation.

The PNM leadership has resolutely refused to take any responsibility and has responded to the terrified public with condescension, insult, and lack of anger management.

Will a default vote phenomenon adversely affect the PNM and mitigate the effects of the current lack of palatable Opposition, which might otherwise lead to the PNM achieving a special majority vote victory?

The danger of special or super-majority victories in national elections is currently a prevailing theme among political commentators. A notable example is the late President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who was able to become a constitutional dictator and establish such status as characteristic of that presidency.

Similarly, Viktor Orban, the current prime minister of Hungary (since 2013), was able to turn Hungary into “an electoral autocracy”.

Chavez and Orban each had enough votes to cross super-majority thresholds and to set aside other constitutional check and balance mechanisms.

See “The Constitutional Path to Dictatorship in Venezuela” – Diego A Zambrano, 20 March 2019, Stanford University Law School” and “The Game Theory of Democracy” – Amanda Taub, New York Times, 29 October 29, referencing the work of Adam Przeworski, Polish-born political scientist, now an Emeritus Professor of Politics at New York University.

Meanwhile, in Mexico last week, the ruling party used its super-majority in Congress to pass a law banning legal challenges to constitutional changes.

Is this where we will land up as a result of the stagnation of the UNC and the closed-door manoeuvres of the PNM?

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.