Daly Bread: PNM’s “ratification” confusion

Dr Eric Williams set the standard for the practice of party politics by the People’s National Movement (PNM), which he founded in 1956.

As political leader of the PNM, after successive PNM general election victories, Dr Williams took office in 1962 as the first prime minister of independent Trinidad and Tobago when the process of moving from colony to full independence had been completed.

One of the legacies of Dr Williams was the practice of party discipline that he instilled into the PNM. Despite the departures from the PNM of ANR Robinson (1970) and Karl Hudson-Phillips (1973) in dramatic circumstances as well as some individual PNM Members of Parliament (MPs) crossing the floor at different times, there was never any lasting scent of internal upheaval in the PNM.

On 11 October 2024, an astonishing announcement was made that the 51st annual convention of the PNM as well as its internal election scheduled for 17 November 2024 had been cancelled.

My column last week posited how any apparent suppression of democracy within the PNM affects the public interest.

It immediately became clear that the decision to cancel was not valid because any such decision could be made only with the authority of the General Council of the PNM.

By a further announcement made on 19 October, the Secretary of the PNM, Foster Cummings, informed us of a purported ratification by the General Council.

Cummings was quoted in the Trinidad Express newspaper as having stated, among other things: “[…] The General Council today ratified the decision by the party leadership to set a new date for the party’s convention. The election we had planned for November has been cancelled.

“The General Council ratified that decision of leadership today and therefore we will await our further positions on that matter….”

It is useful to remind ourselves that ratification is generally the authorisation of an agent, who acting on behalf of another person or organization, did something without the actual authority to do so.

Ratification cures the want of authority in the agent who purported to act on behalf of the organization.

If correctly quoted, the PNM party secretary, in announcing the next steps, made reference to holding a convention on a new date but made no explicit reference to holding an internal election in place of the one that was cancelled.

His words were interpreted in the media to mean that an internal election would be held but why was no new date announced? Has the cancellation been only partially backtracked?

If no internal election is held, five members of the Executive of the party will be permitted to avoid seeking re-election and yet retain their crucial role in the screening of persons being considered for selection as candidates in the coming general election.

See page 4 of the Trinidad Express newspaper on Monday last, 21 October, for the statement to this effect by Robert Le Hunte, a former PNM Public Utilities minister and someone whose leadership ambitions some believe are very real.

Equally importantly, some of those selected as candidates after a screening process—in which the five members will participate—are likely to win seats in the House of Representatives.

Such new MPs may therefore have a crucial role in influencing who commands support of the majority of MPs in accordance with section 76 of the Constitution to replace the current prime minister, Dr Rowley, if he stands down from political leadership of the PNM while he is prime minister.

Of added interest, also contained in this newspaper on Monday last, was the curious warning by Dr Amery Browne, minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs, of “the dangers of vaulting ambition and the hubris that accompanies it” and that “such hubris can affect others negatively”.

Minister Browne also said “it was important not to get ahead of oneself as this can lead to an aura of entitlement”.

Who were getting ahead of themselves and feeling entitled? Are we to understand that hubris and hastiness and not some alleged orderly consultation process drove the original unauthorised leadership decision to cancel the convention and internal election?

As “we await further positions on the matter”, these twists and turns and the silence on the date for the internal election are confusing and questionable.

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.