TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO has ended some nine months of parliamentary stalemate with its third election in three years. The incumbent People's National Movement (PNM), headed by Patrick Manning, has defeated Basdeo Panday's United National Congress (UNC), winning 20 of the 36 seats.
Mr. Panday was the first Indo-Trinidian to have headed the government of a country in which the sharp racial division parallels the political divide. The 18-18 split in parliamentary seats from last December led to the long stalemate.
From this distance it seems remarkable that our sister CARICOM nation could have functioned administratively for so long without a working parliament. For one, the Panday-led opposition refused to co-operate in the election of a Speaker. Hence last Monday's election to break the deadlock.
The closest we here in Jamaica have come to this kind of parliamentary aberration was the 1983 election, which was boycotted by the PNP. But that one-party parliament survived until 1989 without any attempt to damage the democratic processes at this level. In fact, it is to the credit of the Seaga-led government of the period that the notion of independent Senators was introduced to temper the monopoly of a JLP administration.
Trinidadian governments operate in a more sharply divided political culture, which is exacerbated by the racial cleavage between Afro- and Indo-Trinidadians.
Manning's return to power, this time with a workable majority, may spell the political demise of the 69-year-old Panday, according to political observers. In the aftermath of the election, he has spoken of the need to work for constitutional reform and for national unity.
The contemplated reform, we presume, may be a reference to the even number of parliamentary seats which caused the deadlock. That consideration is also relevant to Jamaica's 60-seat elected chamber and should also be considered in our own reform objectives.
Trinidad's relatively short election campaign was said to be acrimonious but the polling itself was practically incident-free. Our current violence-prone activity is, sadly, in sharp contrast.
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