By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
January 10, 2022
With the term of Trinidad and Tobago’s current head of state, President Paula Mae-Weekes, drawing to a close, there seems to be a quandary of things surrounding her successor.
Its Prime Minister, Dr.Keith Rowley has come out at the end of the first week of the year to announce that his government’s nomination for the post is current Senate President, Christine Kangaloo, a former political candidate under his ruling party, the People’s National Movement, (PNM).
His announcement came following his courtesy meeting with members of the opposition, as according to constitution, 12 nominees are to be put forward, with government recommending a list of seven potential persons, and the Opposition nominating the last five.
The news quickly garnered many questions over a sitting political appointee being nominated, generating much thought as to how impartial and bipartisan will the next president of the Republic be?
The opposition of course quickly countered, with its Leader Kamla Persad Bissessar describing the selection of Christine Kangaloo as bringing the office of the President into disrepute. Addressing talk on the street might be that the office holder does not matter, she explained the roles and functions of the president which requires impartiality in many areas of governance. She expressed concerns that under the current constitutional framework, government will be allowed to have its way. Persad Bissessar described Kangaloo as coming from the bellows of the PNM, with ties and links to the political party within her house, citing her marriage relations and relatives involved in state boards.
Opposition Senator Wade Mark warned the nation erosion of its democracy was at hand, and that its “very democracy, rights and freedoms; ability to hold free and fair elections…all of these matters were in danger.”
He further sounded alarm that “If we are not careful, President’s House can become the new Balisier House (Headquarters of the PNM). Fluttering in the wind as they seek to establish a full authoritarian state in our beloved republic”.
The opposition senator said that the current stand taken represents a contradiction in the position they once held back in 2013 on appointing a sitting politician for the role of President, citing a newspaper article where its members were quoted as speaking out against it, POS East MP, Marlene McDonald stating “We have reiterated the position that we will not support any sitting parliamentarian and that we would like to have consensus-building in filling the highest post in the land”.
Mark called on the people to stand up against this move, before it is too late, where independent offices are further tarnished and brought into disrepute, and described the latest move by the Prime Minister as the PNM’s grab for permanent power and term in office. Referencing the powers of the President in appointing members to commissions, including the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) and the Police Service Commission, the opposition described this as warrant for concern by every right-thinking citizen if the ruling PNM seeks to install a PNM member in President’s House.
The tit-for-tat continued with a followed up press conference, this time by the Prime Minister, where he called the aspersions put forward by the Opposition as nothing but deliberately misleading, and attempted to defend his move to nominate Kangaloo, all while quoting the constitution as his moral compass in his decision making. Rowley went on to use Section 24 which states, “Where a member of the Senate or the House of Representatives is elected as President, his seat in the Senate or the House of Representatives respectively, shall thereupon become vacant” as making the provision for a Member of the House or Senate to be considered, along with qualified to be elected and voted into office as President of Trinidad and Tobago.
But the Opposition says it “has never questioned the legality of Kangaloo’s appointment; we question her ability to impartially represent the interests of all citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. This concern is not based simply on the fact that Kangaloo is an active politician and former PNM Minister and Senator”.
President is elected by an electoral college consisting of all the members of the House of Representatives and all the Senators assembled and convened and presided over by the Speaker of the House. Voting by the Electoral College is done by secret ballot, while ten Senators, the Speaker and twelve other Members of the House of Representatives constitute a quorum of the Electoral College, with the president normally holding office for a term of five years.
And while many are seeking to compare Kangaloo’s appointment with ANR Robinson’s entry into the President’s house in 2000, Opposition leader Persad Bissessar has called it a ‘fish and foul’ scenario, where the two situations differ entirely.
In this case it’s a matter of morals and ethics, words that are reminiscent of an era that ushered in a change in the political landscape of Trinidad and Tobago, and caused it to go down in our history books. ANR Robinson, who served as Prime Minister during 1986 to 1991 under the National Alliance for Reconstruction, NAR, was nominated for the position of President in the year 2000 by the then Panday UNC administration. And while the two were often at loggerheads during their shared term in Parliament and the seemingly formed coalition between the NAR and the UNC, allowed for the Basdeo Panday to enter the halls of power in 1995, becoming its first Indo-Trinidadian Prime Minister. The appointment as Robinson as President would haunt Panday in 2001, when his second term in office came to an abrupt stop due to allegations of corruption and a fall out with three of his Members of Parliament forcing a constitutional crisis to arise and a return to the polls.
Robinson’s claim of ‘morals and values’ in selecting Patrick Manning to serve as Prime Minister without having the majority vote, was interpreted by Political analysts as a matter of Christian values held over those of Hinduism held by a prime minister of East Indian origin.
In the 2023 case, its not a matter of race, but of party intentions. Rowley however is adamant, that the system of secret ballot at the electoral college level does work, and during the course of voting for the President back in 2000, he too admitted voting for UNC nominated Robinson for the post of head of state.
The UNC threw its hat in the ring on Saturday, filing Senior Counsel Israel Khan as its nominee for head of state, who has since accepted the tip for the post.
On January 20th, the electoral college is expected to meet, as required by the Constitution, for the Election of a President.