THE RECALCITRANT MAJORITY

THE People’s National Movement is “not an ordinary party in the accepted narrow sense of the word,” its 1956 People’s Charter stressed.

“We are, rather, a rally, a convention of all and for all, a mobilisation of all the forces in the community, cutting across race and religion, class and colour, with emphasis on united action by all the people in the common cause.”

Party founder Dr. Eric Williams’ eloquent prose summed up the PNM’s reason for existence.

Williams outlined a mission for social and economic development – and ethnic solidarity.

He committed the PNM to “wipe out racialism in all forms and to promote unity among the groups… particularly to the promotion of African-Asian unity.”

Yet, in each election held over the succeeding 67 years, the PNM has not wooed more than 30 per cent of the electorate.

The parliamentary opposition of the 1960s and 1970s mocked the PNM as “a 28 per cent government.”

Despite Williams’ lofty declaration, the party cemented itself as an urban Black, Christian organisation, a cloaked agency of ethnic mobilisation.

The concentration of inner-city supporters and historic gerrymandering of urban constituencies have consistently placed the PNM in national office.

Under the city-centric government, there has been rampant rural neglect of and disregard for far-off communities and their residents.

There are many pressing examples, but the abandonment of a modern billion-dollar university campus at Debe symbolises the indifference for people and places away from the sight of the ruling regime.

Williams obligated the PNM to “a new dispensation, a change for the better,” but the party has never come remotely close to that ideal.

The party got 14 per cent of eligible voters in the recent local government poll.

While municipal polls historically do not attract large turnouts, the PNM’s 30 per cent support in the 2020 general election affirms the age-old story.

And yet, the PNM is hardly troubled by its failure to become “a mobilisation of all the forces in the community.”

Party leader Dr. Keith Rowley dusted off the nominal support, saying “it could have been worse,” and trotted off a golf-playing weekend of fun.

But if the PNM does not embody the aspirations of the entire country, opposing forces have a worse track record.

In modern T&T, there have been 75 parties registered with the Elections and Boundaries Commission, with most now being defunct.

The 35-year-old United National Congress largely carries the ambitions of rural Indo-Trinidadians and its restricted appeal creates an ongoing need for a shotgun marriage with an urban team.

And there is no end of political dealers peddling a quick-fire trade, trusting that an electoral deadlock would hand them the keys to the Prime Minister’s office.

The current civil war in the UNC is mounted on the recognition that the party is struggling against an incompetent and driftless ruling regime.

And even if UNC scrapes through, it would be hell to govern, with the PNM’s dominance of urban agencies, the media, the public service and other crucial institutions.

Except for Basdeo Panday’s hard-fought electoral victory in 2000, no stand-alone political unit has torpedoed the status quo party.

The UNC must embody and champion all in plural T&T, including evangelicals, Garveyites, ethnic minorities, millennials, zoomers, and the middle class that can’t wait to flee this despairing land.

The party must vigorously advocate for the working class, especially amid high joblessness, rampant poverty, and the faltering small and medium-sized business sector.

Panday cultivated a crusade for the grassroots and united the labouring class on the factory floor.

There must be ceaseless advocacy – along with the appropriate narrative – against oppression of the working masses.

Equally, the party must silence the active minority which wants a virtual Hindutva following the decline of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha upon the death of strongman Sat Maharaj.

It would assist the party’s cause if it continuously displays its secular moorings.

It is troubling that when a party operative recently voiced an independent view, pundits lined up to attack her “bias,” concluding that “she cannot be trusted to represent all the people.”

Against the tortured scenario of traditional gatekeepers and confined appeal, who represents the wide array of nationals, including independent youths, who have rejected identity politics?

Who speaks for the recalcitrant majority?