Over the last three weeks, Kamla Persad Bissessar’s People’s Partnership Government of Trinidad and Tobago experienced something approximating to a political trauma. Unprecedented action was taken by a university lecturer, Dr Wayne Kublalsingh, as he threatened to literally starve himself to death if the government did not accede to his, and others’ demand to reconsider a major road construction project in the south of Trinidad.
The nature and implications of the political trauma became evident to the government as Dr Kublalsingh, representing an environmentalist interest group, the Highway Re-Route Movement, showed no signs, in the face of extensive ridicule by senior government ministers, and an insistence by the Prime Minister that she would not accede to Dr Kublalsingh’s demand, of reversing his stance. It seems to have come as a surprise to the government that harsh words by both Attorney General Anand Ramlogan and Minister of National Security Jack Warner, and loud pleas from various persons in the society, did not move Dr Kublalsingh to surrender his position, even as his health inevitably deteriorated.
The substance of the issue was the Re-Route Movement’s insistence that the construction of a highway linking San Fernando to Point Fortin was in genera detrimental to the natural environment and the welfare of residents in the area that linked the two towns. It appears, in response to these arguments, that the government thought that by posing the issue in terms of advancing the economic development of the country as whole, as well as enhancing areas that had been previously neglected, or had lost previous economic production capabilities, the general population would come down in favour of the larger economic arguments, rather than the specific concerns of the environmentalists and what the government deemed to be the short-term concerns of the residents likely to be affected.
To the surprise of the government leadership, neither pleas, nor ridicule from itself and its social allies were able to move Dr Kublalsingh, even as his health continued to deteriorate. Further, its economic arguments became somewhat stained by suggestions emanating from senior levels within its own ranks that the environmentalists were against development in an area largely populated by ethnic Indians, with a consequent alienation of supporters and citizens in other parties sympathetic to the development argument.
In effect, the strains and a rising confrontationist stance between the major parties, including the parliamentary opposition Peoples National Movement, had the effect of inducing more public identification with Dr Kublalsingh. This then had the consequence of leading to strains within the PP government itself, with some of the leadership of the Congress of the People (COP) grouping within the PP distancing themselves from Persad Bissessar’s dominant United National Congress section of the PP. The COP obviously realized that the government’s stance was alienating a part of the population larger than the PNM opposition. And their position was obviously strengthened when Foreign Minister Winston Dookeran, former leader of the COP appealed, from outside of the country, to the Prime Minister to seek some kind of truce.
The stagnation in positions between the PP government and others seeking a mediated solution in the face of Dr Kublalsingh’s deterioration, was now leading to a paralysis in decision-making, as well as to an emerging split within the government itself. In that situation, persons and institutions in the wider society seemed to turn against the government, not on grounds of the rightness of its opponents, but on the basis of the need to show more humanitarian commitment in the face of the crisis. The country itself was appearing to be becoming traumatized.
It is in this context, with a government unable to move from its original position of hard-line and politically-abusive resistance to Dr Kublalsingh, the deterioration of relations within its own ranks, and its inability to persuade wider sections of the society, that political space was created for an independent initiative. With a Joint Consultative Committee composed of professionals, including many within the construction and development arenas, making the case to the government for what it described as an independent review of the whole issue, the possibility was created for a new approach, and Dr Kublalsingh’s cessation of what he referred to as his hunger strike.
The seriousness of the situation at that point is indicated in Prime Minister Persad Bissessar’s subsequent statement that the issue had been her “biggest challenge this year” and a “troubling and emotional one.” Others suggest that the Prime Minister was not helped by senior ministers in her cabinet like Attorney General Ramlogan and Minister of National Security Jack Warner, himself under challenge for other reasons.
But the event and the trauma created among the political actors undoubtedly affecting other sections of the population, would appear to have persuaded the larger population of the value of independent professional groupings in the society, in a context in which in many Caribbean countries, the political space for independent action has often seemed to be closing, rather than widening.
It is left to be seen whether both the PP government and the Re-Route Movement will be willing to accept the Independent Review Committee’s conclusions. Governments in our region often insist that as a matter of principle cabinet has the last word. That the last word must be influenced by the views of others, and not simply the political interests of party and government, still seems to be a general position of those in office, amended, as in this Trinidad case, only when trauma and division seem to be on the brink of paralyzing the function of government itself.
