Mr Patrick Manning who died towards the end of last week was among the second generation of Caribbean leaders who succeeded the giant grouping of Eric Williams of Trinidad & Tobago, Norman Manley of Jamaica and Errol Barrow of Barbados, with the combination of Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham of Guyana, who had essentially fashioned the transition period to independence of the English-speaking Caribbean territories controlled by Britain.
Manning inherited a Trinidad & Tobago whose electorate had, to some extent, fallen out of its fascination with first the rule of Eric Williams who died in 1981, as well as with his People’s National Movement that had substantially dominated the governance of the country since it succeeded at the polls in 1956. Manning had essentially been handpicked by Williams as an individual of political promise, and he perceived his opportunity to seek the leadership of the PNM when the party under George Chambers lost office to the deliberately multi-racially composed National Alliance for Reconstruction (1986-1991) led by ANR Robinson, the party’s Deputy Leader who had himself formerly been the accepted heir to Williams and had broken ranks with the party and its leader.
Both colleagues and opponents of Manning conceded that with his background as a student of geology, he played a major role in seeking to maximize the energy potential of the country, as a means of breaking the limitations which both Williams and Robinson had faced in attempting to transform the country from its economic base as a mere exporter of oil and gas, and a manufacturer of light industrial goods. Rather, he recognized that the country needed to use those mineral-owing opportunities to ensure industrialization as the leading sector of the economy.
Manning also inherited the determination of Williams to create a stronger regionalism among the English-speaking Caribbean states beyond a mere economic integration, but particularly with respect to the southern and Eastern Caribbean, to create a more politically integrated system. As is well known, he had little success with this venture and eventually seemed to accept the current formulation of a set of countries seeking autonomous paths in political and economic policies on the basis of what Caribbean regionalism remains – a process of negotiation among countries and governments resigned to accept a basic commonality of policies at essentially the lowest common denominator.
In the domestic politics of his country, Prime Minister Manning sought to maintain the essential political premise of Eric Williams, this being that the country, and therefore the PNM as a party, should be composed of major components of all the races or ethnic groups. But it was obviously accepted that the de facto relationship between them, and their separate numerical compositions, almost mandated that one or other of the dominant groups – African or Indian would, in effect, dominate the composition of the membership of Parliament and therefore the composition of the cabinet. That situation remains essentially the same today.
After a reasonably lengthy period of rule, following his original assumption of leadership of the government, Manning’s domination of the leadership became challenged by Keith Rowley (now Prime Minister), in much the same way as in an earlier period, Chambers had been challenged by Ray Robinson.
The internal opposition essentially came to see Manning as inclining to autocracy, a situation which had the potential, similar to the era of Robinson-Chambers confrontation, given that, in its history, both of the opponents of the dominant PNM leaders were the leading politicians of Tobago – raising, at its extremity, some interpretation of the possibility of a partition between the entities of the twin-island state.
In effect, the withdrawal of Manning from the political scene, the assumption of leadership by Rowley, and then the PNM’s victory at the polls created an aura of unity within the PNM that has allowed it to succeed at the polls, in the context of suggestions of corruption and unorthodox conduct of office by the United National Congress (UNC).
In the interim period of the UNC’s occupation of office the Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had seemed to prefer focusing on a more autonomous orientation for the country’s foreign policy, leading to focusing on an internationalization of policy as against indicating a leadership orientation within the Caricom system.
Observers indicate that the resumption of office by the PNM has been reflected in a more active participation in regional politics. Yet, from the other end of the Caricom geopolitical spectrum, Prime Minister Rowley will soon be faced with the conclusions of a review commission, mandated by the Government of Jamaica, and headed by former Prime Minister Bruce Golding, of the relevance of Caricom regionalism to Jamaica.
