THE sensational defeat last Sunday of Basdeo Panday as political leader of Trinidad and Tobago’s major opposition United National Congress (UNC) has been generating a mix of hopes and speculations about the real possibility for changing the culture of party politics in that twin-island state.

It perhaps even has the potential to influence political patterns, including voting tradition in multicultural societies beyond Trinidad and Tobago in Caricom.

The most charismatic of post-republic Trinidadian politicians, former trade union leader, prime minister for seven years, founder-leader of the UNC (successor to the United Labour Front) for 20 years, has reacted very badly to his defeat at age 77.

He has screamed “sabotage”, for instance, over boxes of UNC membership cards discovered at party headquarters — after the results were declared – when, from all credible indications, his overwhelming defeat was based on a democratic voting procedure.

What made matters worse was the fact that he was defeated by a woman, Kamla Persad-Bissessar — a former attorney general in his cabinet who triumphed, the first time around, where all male challengers had previously failed, to dislodge from the leadership helm the ‘comrade’ they had for years revered as the “silver fox” for his assumed political astuteness.

This column was being written ahead of a scheduled meeting last Friday afternoon of the Trinidad and Tobago House of Representatives when at least eight of the 15 UNC parliamentarians would have had to decide whether to vote for Persad-Bissessar to also succeed Panday as opposition leader.

However, should the initial bid to replace him as Opposition Leader not fail, it’s unlikely to succeed in the long term. Consequently, party politics in Trinidad and Tobago is heading for a fundamental change.

Unprecedented?

I cannot recall an example in the modern political history of the Caribbean region where, other than in Trinidad and Tobago, a major parliamentary party conducts its internal election of office bearers, including leader, in the manner of a national election, with all the customary mix of ‘bad-mouthing’, divisiveness and personal bitterness.

I cannot also recall where, as a consequence of the democratic process, the founder-leader of the party suffers a humiliating defeat from the direct voting by eligible members.

This unique development, one that introduces a new concept in internal party democracy, and mocks “maximum leadership” politics, was stunningly dramatised on Sunday (January 24) when Panday suffered defeat at the hands of Persad-Bissessar – the woman he had embraced and nurtured (politically) for many years.

The question remains whether the outcome symbolises both the end of an era or a new beginning in party politics and the culture of governance in Trinidad and Tobago.

Bitter conflicts resulting from leadership challenges are known to many political parties in our region and the world over. Countries who suffer from this include Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, Barbados, St Lucia and Grenada.

However, what occurred at the UNC election on Sunday was more than a political earthquake for that party. It would have telegraphed a clear message also to Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s governing People’s National Movement (PNM) that the ol’ politics is in jeopardy and new ways for achieving or retaining state power must be found, and the sooner the better.

The rise of Persad-Bissessar as the first woman leader of a political party in Trinidad and Tobago also widens the window of opportunity for more meaningful, integrated involvement of women in the politics of this major plural society where race and cultural differences have often been exploited by both opposition and ruling parties to secure and sustain power.

Of course, in Jamaica, the populist “Sister P” (Portia Simpson Miller) had years earlier carved her name in history by defeating her male challengers to succeed the retired PJ Patterson for leadership of the People’s National Party (PNP). The situation was quite different in the UNC’s leadership contest.

The new leadership structure of the UNC, with Persad-Bissessar and the flamboyant Jack Warner of regional/international football fame, as leader and chairman, respectively, could only have resulted from the twin factors of a significant departure from traditional Hindu-based norms by that party’s voting women members and the shocking misreading of his problem by the once lionised “silver fox”.

PNM’s strategy

Afro-Trinidadian women, who, by and large, have acquired a more encouraging profile in political activism on issues of women’s rights and gender equality, would undoubtedly welcome the promise of change that has resulted from Persad-Bissessar’s leadership victory and declaration: “This is a small step for the UNC but a giant step for the nation…”

It could be “a giant step” indeed, if those from both the UNC and PNM yet to overcome their imprisonment from race-oriented and class-based politics, carefully analyse and act on the multi-messages resulting from the outcome of the UNC internal elections.

While a bitter Panday continues to threaten to hold on to his parliamentary post as opposition leader, Prime Minister Manning has already started to drop open hints in the media about a possible “snap election”.

The composition of the current parliament, based on the November 2007 general election, is: PNM 26 and UNC 15. For Persad-Bissessar to displace Panday as opposition leader, she needs to first secure the support of seven of her UNC parliamentary colleagues.

At the time of writing she seemed short of two, but there was a strong likelihood of achieving that goal as her parliamentary colleagues grapple with the reality of the extent of her virtual 12-1 defeat of Panday and what the leadership change could mean for the UNC’s return to power.

For his part, Manning is by no means sitting on his hands. He had boasted, sort of tongue-in-cheek, last weekend while the UNC election campaign was drawing to a close, that “the PNM does not wash its dirty linen in public”. But by Tuesday he was being quoted in the media on the likelihood of a “snap election” later in the year.

The prime minister would be aware of the chuckles his remark about the PNM not publicly “washing its dirty linen” may have provoked, given the harsh political reality of the ongoing face-off with his former challenger for leadership Keith Rowley, whom he felt compelled to remove from his cabinet over issues that remain very much in the public domain.

The PNM leader would also be anxious not to allow the UNC to settle down under the leadership of Persad-Bissessar, knowing of the alignments and realignments that could occur with Winston Dookeran’s Congress of People (COP) and the evident disaffection within the traditional base of his own party.

After all, at the 2007 general election, the combined valid votes for the UNC and COP totalled 52.37 per cent, compared to the PNM’s approximately 46 per cent.

The COP, however, did not get a single seat for its own 148,000 portion of total votes cast, by virtue of the first-past-the-post electoral system.

Now, with Panday’s self-inflicted wounds contributing to his leadership demise, he would do well for party and country to gracefully hand over his post as opposition leader to his former attorney general and once “endearing sister”, Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

Will he volunteer, or be forced to do so? One way or the other, we may well be witnessing the dawn of a new era in Trinidad and Tobago’s politics.