Stubborn integration memories

Former Saint Lucia Prime Minister Allen Chastanet recently floated the idea of the withdrawal of OECS states from some Caricom arrangements in favour of bilateral deals with T&T, Jamaica, and Guyana.

Citing persistent inequities, Prime Minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dr Ralph Gonsalves, has meanwhile suggested that leaving the Caricom Single Market should be "on the table."

While neither leader expressed firm commitments to such views, these positions echo a growing global trend away from multilateralism toward transactional, bilateral relations. It’s a shift that trades shared risk and mutual benefit for supposed national gain, often employing short-term logic.

In the Caribbean, this trend overlaps with rising internal tensions over external pressures. There is no clear consensus on Venezuela. We’re divided in our responses to American global policy. And our positions on Gaza have been painfully uneven.

Still, none of this is especially new. Caribbean integration has always had its challenges. For instance, the years of revolutionary Grenada, 1979 to 1983, were among the toughest tests. Yet ours is not the only integration movement under pressure. Many, if not most, such projects across the world are faltering.

Since hearing these recent suggestions of retreat and surrender, I have been unable to take the 1991 Regional Constituent Assembly (RCA) of the Windward Islands out of my mind. That watershed effort, involving Dominica, Grenada, Saint Lucia, and St Vincent and the Grenadines, was an honest, open attempt to deepen sub-regional integration. It brought together government, opposition, and civil society in serious, structured dialogue.

Regrettably, we’ve rarely returned to that moment. The Caricom 2003 Rose Hall Declaration dissected "regional governance," but failed to achieve tangible follow-through over the long term and is ironically being referenced in promotion of next month’s Caricom summit in Jamaica.

The RCA, in some respects, matched the far more structured and celebrated West Indian Commission (WIC) consultations on the future of the integration, which were launched the following year. The spirit of the RCA arguably inspired the now-defunct Assembly of Caribbean Community Parliamentarians (ACCP), promisingly launched in 1994.

What made the RCA unique was its inclusiveness. It brought together ruling and opposition parties, alongside civil society. Even at that time, despite the complicated relationship between the OECS and wider Caricom, progress at the OECS level was often described as being ahead of the larger group.

Today, 34 years later, Dr Gonsalves - who in 1991 was leader of his country’s youngest and smallest party (Movement for National Unity) – has since run St Vincent and the Grenadines under a Unity Labour Party banner for over two decades. Dr Kenny Anthony, who served as an RCA advisor, became Prime Minister of Saint Lucia and remains a sitting MP. Even Dr Vaughan Lewis, then OECS Director-General, briefly became Prime Minister of Saint Lucia.

The RCA considered bold ideas, including a federal executive presidency and deeper institutional integration. Today, one of its authors wants detachment “put on the table.” Perhaps these leaders have privately referenced the RCA’s final report. If so, those reflections have not been shared publicly.

To some, invoking RCA memories may seem remote or irrelevant in light of the recent 77th OECS Authority summit held in St Vincent and persistent comments from elsewhere in the region. But I think it matters.

The current crisis of regional communication only adds to the problem. Caricom’s well-known “communication gap” (my words) has helped fuel public indifference and ignorance. Declining commitment to and from reliable legacy media, combined with amateurish and unidirectional use of social media by regional institutions, has made things worse.

Social media is often cited as the answer, but such communication isn’t just about YouTube videos or static posts and dispatches, it’s about meaningful dialogue, strategy, and expertise. And yes, we do have professionals in the system who know how to do it. They should be leading this work.

The fact is we are not going to social media our way out of this malaise. Reaching people where they are - in their own spaces, on their terms - will take much more than social media content dumps. Perhaps a revived ACCP or a Caribbean constituent assembly could help rekindle the serious, people-centred dialogue we need.

That’s the kind of stubborn memory we need right now. One that pushes us to remember what regionalism can look like – rough around the edges but effective and promising. Caricom leaders should bear this in mind when they meet in Jamaica, July 6 to 8.

Because at the moment, very little is happening to inspire the confidence we urgently need in something indispensable to everything between survival and prosperity.

Election over, back to work

Hopefully, today’s presentation of the Mid-year Budget Review and ensuing debates will take a sharp turn off the path of lingering election bluster and hubris and studiously negotiate the realm of harsh economic reality.

Monday’s Standing Finance Committee offered a preview. And last week’s convening of the House of Representatives conveyed mixed messages regarding this requirement to get down to real business in defiance of the afterglow of the hustings.

For instance, beyond the brittle pillar of a campaign promise there appeared little data-driven logic to support the move to remove the Revenue Authority from a changing institutional landscape designed to secure and enhance the integrity of national revenues.

It’s as if the perils of near fatal decline are somehow being willfully ignored. There are things, as well, that can be said about the treatment of troublesome foreign exchange inflows and outflows, including a committed willingness to disrupt the prevailing regime of access while influencing wider societal behaviours.

In that context, answering the question of who gets and who doesn’t get – mere naming and shaming - does not begin to address the real requirements of wider economic transformation.

Some, not all, of our economists have appropriately broken things down in bits and pieces to indicate that this goes beyond the dogged application of Central Bank disclosure principles. There has, however, been some public timidity in suggesting that the country needs to undertake dramatic behaviour change to stem net outward flows.

It is a discomfiting scenario to suggest that brand preference in motorcars and other imports, offline and online purchases of consumer durables surplus to real need, public entertainment, and overseas travel will have to inconveniently enter the discussion at some point. The old story of taste versus need.

For, what is actually before us? Our economic mainstay, the energy sector is, arguably, in irreversible decline. Our manufacturing sector is promising and has displayed a level of resilience but badly needs to up its game. Tourism is also an effectively stagnant proposition at the moment.

Meanwhile, a World Bank dispatch on Monday advised dimly that “flows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into developing economies - a key propellant of economic growth and higher living standards - have dwindled to the lowest level since 2005.”

Importantly, the WB (about which we shall be hearing more in the coming weeks and months) attributed the decline to rising global trade and investment barriers. The people engaged in serious business here can tell you how significantly changes in the geo-political landscape of the global north have affected prospects for growth and development for us and for the rest of the world.

In 2023 (note the year), the latest year for which data are available, “developing economies received just US$435 billion in FDI - the lowest level since 2005,” the WB report says.

This was two years ago … even before the current steep cuts in multilateral funding by the US and, increasingly, countries such as the UK and those of the EU.

Significantly, FDI flows into advanced economies have also “slowed to a trickle.” Now, consider this alongside the fact that the decline in FDI is meeting exponential growth in public debt.

Accordingly, in the view of Indermit Gill, the World Bank Group’s Chief Economist and Senior Vice President, “private investment will now have to power economic growth, and FDI happens to be one of the most productive forms of private investment. Yet, in recent years governments have been busy erecting barriers to investment and trade when they should be deliberately taking them down.”

Such countries, he said “will have to ditch that bad habit.”

In fact, and in our case, there has been ceaseless lobbying by business groups and some individuals for the policymakers to pay greater attention to the state of our current trade and investment environment and to consider accompanying optimisation of a wider horizon for the generation of wealth.

This space only recently advocated for elevation of the orange economy – the creative sector – as a key component of the required transformation. The mid-year review will be incomplete without mention of alternative areas of potential economic growth.

Additionally, though the rest of the region has been hit hard by the changing global circumstances – Guyana being the one exception because of windfall energy revenues – Caricom markets are insufficiently exploited, despite favourable CSME provisions.

Yes, today’s presentation by the finance minister can be expected to address the routine issue of supplementary appropriations and make observations about overall economic performance. But it’s the new administration’s turn to shine on centre stage. This is more than clever campaign “minifestoes.” This is where the rubber really hits the road.

T&T’s Labour Contractions

Among the numerous important public affairs sidebars accompanying T&T’s current political transition is organised labour’s struggle for continued relevance beyond declining instances in which collective bargaining exists.

For example, much has been said, almost derisively, about involvement of a few leading activists in the election campaign. This came with little acknowledgment of the fact that among the principal features of early political party development were agitations led by organised labour. In a sense, labour birthed our early politics.

The labour struggle has always been “political” in nature and has habitually been expressed in terms of national power dynamics.

The main actors in the early years also played an undeniable agenda-setting role on the key economic sectors of oil and sugar and introduced early notions of social justice.

Over the years, though, the framing of “labour” discussions has changed to represent a general move away from recognition of the sector as focal points of power and influence.

There is now much closer alignment with transformative, ameliorative measures to address a steady decline in trade union representation, institutional weakness, incoherence, and declining visibility and influence in key national areas.

Important discussions on the changing world of work, digitalisation, and the terms of reference for a changed social compact are all absent from their routine discourses, except in fits and starts largely arranged by others.

All this as one optimistic estimate is that no more than 25% of all employed people are members of a trade union in T&T. “Labour” now finds shared, comfortable ministerial space alongside initiatives in “Small and Micro Enterprise Development” as if to signal proximate, available rescue opportunities.

In the process, rigid insistence on a labour environment characterised by the principle of collective bargaining, more assured social protections, and the existence of (or aspirations for) a durable social compact have become disappearing attributes.

Multipartism, as a communion of equals, is also fading from view as a goal embraced by all.

While he was in T&T in April, en route to the 13th ILO Meeting of Caribbean Labour Ministers in Guyana, I attempted to secure an interview with ILO Director-General Gilbert F. Houngbo to get a global fix on the state of trade unionism and the extent to which national and regional realities were a reflection of what is happening elsewhere.

When I was unable to achieve this, the ILO Caribbean Office located in Port of Spain kindly supplied responses to my several concerns.

I had argued, in my line of questioning, that labour unions in the Caribbean are shrinking in size and influence, diminishing the effectiveness of collective bargaining, and pushing labour leaders toward (direct) political activism.

Is this shift, I wondered, a cause for concern given the state’s role as dominant employers in many Caribbean nations?

The ILO response was that the decline in union membership and influence is, in fact, “a valid concern not only in the Caribbean, but globally.”

“While political activism can be a strategic response,” the ILO response went, “it should not replace unions’ core function of representing workers through social dialogue including collective bargaining.”

There is some recent ILO research on the future for trade unions which the institution says points to an inalienable role for such organisations “in strengthening workplace representation.”

“Trade unions must adapt,” the ILO responded. “Political engagement can be part of this renewal, but only if rooted in workers’ real needs and backed by efforts to rebuild union power in the workplace.”

When we look around today in T&T and elsewhere in the Caribbean, there is reasonable cause to be concerned that amid prevailing decline, there is a jettisoning of the means through which the labour sector can recover relevance and influence.

It does not appear that a serious survival project is being engaged. For instance, I have not seen any attempt to resume pursuit of organisational tripartism, in whatever manifestation, including T&T’s long abandoned National Tripartite Advisory Council (NTAC).

Additionally, the continued work of a unique, strong, independent, and indigenous Industrial Court as authoritative mediator of industrial conflict cannot be attended to in a cavalier, reckless manner as is currently the case.

The Employers Consultative Association (ECA) has been largely silent on much of this, and the state, as a single most important employer itself, has perhaps enjoyed some benefits including a meek pledge of political allegiance from workers’ representatives in the state sector.

The overall outlook for organised labour is not at all encouraging. Are its leaders experiencing the pains of contraction? Is the unfolding crisis on the agenda for next week’s Labour Day observances?

Time for the CCJ

Sadly, deadline issues conspired to exclude personal reflections on yesterday’s ceremonial sitting of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) at Queen’s Hall, Trinidad to honour the service of outgoing President of the Court, Justice Adrian Saunders.

Justice Saunders, who demits office on July 3, has been a member of the Court since its very first sitting 20 years ago, and has been at the helm for the past seven years.

He is a native of St Vincent and the Grenadines and is often referred to as a “home-grown” Caribbean jurist, having graduated from The UWI Cave Hill campus in Barbados in 1975 and the Hugh Wooding Law School in T&T in 1977.

Getting to know him at the professional level about 10 years ago brought confirmation to recurring hearsay regarding his determined commitment to Caribbean development and sovereignty, and his vast knowledge on matters of law and justice.

As a mere layman with an interest in such matters, there have been few occasions during which Justice Saunders, even in casual inter-personal “obiter dicta”, has not provided me and others around him with instruction on questions of balance, fairness, and accuracy.

These qualities, of course, were also habits of the predecessors I came to know, including one past President who summoned me to his chamber over what he assessed to be an inaccuracy surrounding the status of the CCJ Trust Fund – a unique financial mechanism designed as insulation against arbitrary behaviour by contributing nations.

Despite this, there are members of the legal profession and politicians here and in our region, who persist with silliness over the perceived vulnerability of the Court to parochial financial whim.

It should also not be that millionaire advocates with big national and regional reputations are correspondingly confused about or ignorant of the work and status of the Regional Judicial and Legal Services Commission (RJLSC) which presides over the independent appointment of CCJ judges.

Some of these people sometimes scour social media pages and posts and even contribute to relevant online conversations but never attempt to correct repeated public ignorance and folly surrounding the Court.

It is also patently untrue to assert that “Trinidad and Tobago NOT in de CCJ” despite its headquarters being situated in POS. I have heard this too many times. This is a nonsense built into political narratives particularly expressive of a lack of support for the CCJ in its discrete role as a court of final appeal.

For the benefit of proponents of such confusion, the CCJ is actually a hybrid institution serving both as a “municipal court of last resort” – its appellate jurisdiction - and as an “international court vested with original, compulsory and exclusive jurisdiction in respect of the interpretation and application of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas.”

In fact, this country has been the subject of the largest share of cases before the CCJ with respect to its “original jurisdiction” role. The last T&T related judgment came on October 22, 2024 (a “CLICO” case), and the first one involved Trinidad Cement Ltd in July 2008.

It is also not widely acknowledged (or perhaps known) that the CCJ is an itinerant court – meaning it can convene hearings in any of the signatory countries.

The question of the appellate jurisdiction of the Court has also been subject to a variety of nonsenses. The funding issue and judge selection have been addressed higher up. Don’t just take it from a journalistic “bush lawyer”, look it up.

But what of the ethnic makeup of the CCJ Bench? This is among the more egregiously insulting observations about the Court made by those who have most likely not conducted a corresponding head count in other apex jurisdictions, including the one of their own lucrative choice.

This year, the Court marks 20 years since its inauguration on April 16, 2005. Justice Saunders is to be succeeded next month by Justice Winston Anderson – another committed regionalist with dual Barbadian/Jamaican nationalities.

He was founding Chairman of the CCJ Academy for Law in 2010 and, through his work as a panellist contributing more than once to the work of the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) in our journalism training, is clearly committed to expanding knowledge not only of how systems of law and justice work, but about the place of the CCJ in Caribbean life.

Even in the absence of the ideology and philosophy often cited in support of an indigenous apex jurisdiction, and most of the countervailing silliness and ignorance, a rational debate can be engaged on the merits and demerits of a CCJ. I am yet to witness one.

 

The Code is Orange

As is the known routine, numerous developmental babies will go crashing through open windows together with sometimes murky administrative bath water as the country transitions painstakingly from one political administration to the next.

In some instances, the stillborn will number among the casualties. In others, healthy, promising offspring will meet their doom. In the process, sustained social and economic opportunity is sacrificed in the name of newness and change.

Had circumstances been different, we could have afforded the folly of past eras, but the challenges of today do not offer abundant space or time to fail to advance the development agenda.

Our rich bounty of creative value and its potential for wealth creation is too often wilfully ignored. After all, what good is a STEM without the flowers and the fruit?

Thankfully, mention of the prospects for our “orange economy” featured occasionally during the recent campaign. There was little difference in platform rhetoric. This may signal room for future bipartisan support and administrative collaboration.

There are people and organisations who have been consistently making the case for greater recognition of the creative sector. The T&T Chamber, for instance, has significantly developed the concept with accompanying concrete initiatives in the areas of film, music, and fashion. It has also elaborated vital connections with tourism, software, and intellectual property. This is one wheel that requires no inventing.

Generally, the country has something of a head start in the areas of steelpan, mas’, and indigenous music. Yet, there is need for a more enlightened, self-reliant approach.

Some arithmetic has already been done regarding cold, net national gains, but the calculations associated with chemistry are lacking.

It was promising that the Global Trinidad and Tobago umbrella - under which exporTT, InvesTT and CreativeTT were to be relocated - had been conceived and quite recently launched.

Yes, there is always room for tweaking and refinement in achieving the required synergies. But, to me, the move represented long-awaited awareness of national value through a harmonising of official, national effort in the creative sector.

It is however also true that private entrepreneurship in this field has long been practised and, in some cases, highly refined. There are people who have never sought or acquired official support who have made their mark and are contributing to national wealth in the process. Let’s hear from them.

But a single coordinating mechanism for exploring all available options and creating an official framework to allow initiatives to be fruitful makes eminent sense. Global Trinidad and Tobago is a viable baby that should not be exposed to an open window for disposal.

Fine, the powers that be may wish to have folks involved among whom they feel more comfortable – though the code here is “orange” and not “yellow” or “red.” It is a shade somewhere in between those primary colours.

This newspaper space has been repeatedly employed to promote greater awareness of what is happening in the creative field outside of the headliners in pan and music. There is an abundance of literature, theatre, dance, and the visual arts.

Pan remains the best thing we do in this country. There is little debate there. But also scan what is unfolding among young people in the wider field of music. This is not happening in small bits and pieces. There is a virtual avalanche of young musical talent crossing the traditional divides and presenting itself in greater frequency throughout the country and region.

Hopefully, when there are people assigned to action this it will not include those who will be overly surprised. We have had line ministers, public servants, and sundry officials who are clueless about what is happening. You don’t see them at the shows. They are absent. They are blissfully unaware.

Additionally, having renewed my own embrace of visual art, I have become increasingly aware of the vibrancy of this field of artistic endeavour. There are exhibitions, markets, online ventures, tuition opportunities, and an entire world that has remained largely ignored (in some respects thankfully so) by officialdom.

Finally (as if there isn’t so much to say about today’s subject), have a look at what is happening in the literary field. Who was or wasn’t at the 2025 fifteenth edition of Bocas LitFest? This is a premier annual event. Aside from this, there are numerous launches, readings, workshops and other activities that tap into the literary assets of our country.

Space has run out for me yet again. But check our features pages and the weekend GML supplements. Tell me what you see. If you don’t see great promise, your eyes aren’t working properly.

Our crowded agenda

Though Friday’s ceremonial opening of parliament simply sounds the opening whistle to signal the start of a new session, there is every indication that the forthcoming legislative agenda has the potential to keep members intensely engaged – especially if we were to take seriously the announced transition of election “minifestoes” to official policy.

It is however also true that not every UNC campaign wish means an amended law or a new one. Here are three issues of legislative relevance that should not needlessly cram the parliamentary schedule.

For example, enforcement of the Noise Pollution Control Rules under the Environmental Management Act, more diligent enforcement of the “public nuisance” feature of the Summary Offences Act, and resurrection of the Explosives (Prohibition of Scratch Bombs) Order 2018 can tell us you are serious about addressing harmful, disruptive noise.

What is needed here is stringent application of existing laws and regulations. Yes, there can be some tweaking here and there, but we really have enough ammo to deal with this.

This would leave space for addressing touchier issues such as the striking anomaly of equal opportunity legislation which okays discrimination against people based on “sexual preference or orientation.” Employers, landlords, schools, and service providers cannot be prosecuted and punished on such grounds under this law.

It is my understanding that a suitable amendment is already available, and groups such as CAISO, Pride TT and others have people with the knowledge and expertise to lend a hand in this matter. So, easy-peasy, little time and effort is needed to get this one done.

Then comes the more vexing, complicated issue of mismanagement in the handling of immigration matters. Hopefully, minister Alexander has busied himself with the minute details regarding administrative tardiness in this hugely important area, and the attorney general is aware of the relevant international human rights landscape.

For example, what could possibly take decades to manage residency petitions?  Why has the processing of asylum-seekers here not been guided by proper refugee policy and is not fully compliant with international law?

On the latter point, the UNC has had much to say in recent times, following early ill-advised resistance. Hopefully, we will not follow the example of others who have chosen to openly ignore some basic principles of international law associated with accommodating people claiming to escape oppressive conditions in their home countries.

Of the 37,906 refugees and asylum-seekers registered by the UNHCR in T&T, more than 86% are from Venezuela. The other 14%, from over 38 countries over the years, also require attention. Let’s not forget them.

The figure of 100,000 undocumented immigrants - snatched out of thin, speculative air by numerous commentators and even some learned researchers - may or may not be accurate. Not all arrivals have registered. But it has become fashionable to promote negative narratives regarding the ubiquitous presence of Venezuelans here by employing such guesstimates and the consequential reality of an “invasion” or unmanageable “influx.”

There is also the fact that close to 1,400 children have been born to registered asylum-seekers and refugees in T&T since 2018/2019. As far as I am aware, we are one of those countries in which unconditional “birthright citizenship” (jus soli) is observed.  The reluctance to integrate these children into our school system has been one of the gross injustices of recent years.

Last year, the parents of only 148 children applied to attend public school and just 60 were accommodated. This is one campaign promise a la minifesto - “the integration of Venezuelan migrants” - that also does not require too much parliamentary time to implement.

It is, however, a multifaceted imperative that sees several arms of government becoming simultaneously engaged.

This includes immigration, health, education, social services and others. For those with “jus soli” status, our clever legal fraternity must surely be engaged in preparing pathways for application of the rights of these children, if not under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

There are also thousands of adult Venezuelans currently in nervous possession of expired permits hoping to benefit from a new, more enlightened, regulatory regime.

These are only three of the burning issues that can be addressed within a relatively short period of time and are mostly in keeping with the spirit of election campaign promises/declarations.

While the public wish list is much longer than these three areas, the advantage of newness should be applied to get them out of the way quickly.

The governments we want

First published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian on May 16, 2018

Having covered and observed Caribbean elections over several decades (and even participated in one 37 years ago as a Tapia candidate), I must say I have always wondered why so many political contestants are eventually proven to either be wholly incompetent or hopelessly dishonest and corrupt.

Don’t get me wrong. I will never suggest that there aren’t many honourable, decent and skillful people who offer themselves for political office … and win. In fact, I have often wondered what it would have been like to have brought some of our finest office-holders together under national unity administrations throughout the Caribbean to help fix our broken societies.

I would even risk the prima facie naïve suggestion that the best our political parties have had to offer over the years could have collectively head-off some of the mess we are now faced with.

But then, politics is all about the calibration of power dynamics. There need to be wholesome forces competing against each other to bring about a sense of balance and restraint against excesses – sometimes even when the contestation is illusory.

I suppose the social scientists would argue that this is the nature of so-called “western democratic values” and why totalitarian experiments have all failed – as indeed they have – because the political space required to pit ideas against each other is a requirement of societies that crave democracy and the freedom it portends.

Only last year, a paper written by Josh Halberstam, Richard Öhberg, Daniele Paserman, Mikael Persson, Martín Rossi and Juan Vargas for the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) attempted to answer the question: Who becomes a politician?

You know, I can’t remember what led to the search that unearthed the paper, but what I found – albeit in an almost completely different context, since they used Sweden as the political laboratory – was that there are real questions Caribbean people need to seek answers to if we are to rise above chronically poor political performance.

For example. Can our democracies attract competent leaders, while attaining broad representation? The writers of the NBER paper point to economic models which suggest that “free-riding incentives and lower opportunity costs give the less competent a comparative advantage at entering political life.”

In T&T, we would perhaps call this the “eat-ah-food” phenomenon – otherwise unaccomplished individuals with no real skills or abilities to talk about, catapulted onto the national stage with huge assignments and responsibilities, and encouraged to play the part because of the perks of office. In the wrestling ring of politics, it could perhaps be identified as “a reverse Maslow.”

Then comes the assertion that if the better endowed (intellectually and financially) “validating” elites - to abuse Lloyd Best’s unavoidable expression - are selected on the basis of perceived competence and absence of the “eat-ah-food” complex, there is more likely than not to be unevenness in the actual representation of the population.

In our context, though, it is also conceivable that both the intellectually and financially well-endowed and positioned may prove to be entirely incompetent. In T&T and among our Caribbean neighbours there are enough examples of where this has turned out to be the case.

This is why though we may wish not to give expression to this conundrum constitutionally, there perhaps needs to be, in the fashioning of our political organisations, more studious examination of the process of political selection. Such a re-examination would consider the balancing of the concept of “broad” representation against the requirement to have the best human resources at the wheel.

One huge component of all of this, of course, is the requirement of greater political education - a task none of our current political organisations has been able to sustain and one the formal education system has failed to effectively deliver.

Because our political parties are mainly dedicated campaign outfits, there appears to be little will or ability to expand their functionality in this important area.

So, while we wait, we not only get the governments we deserve, we sometimes regretfully get the ones we want.

Urgent business

Take it from me. Post-election shenanigans, tribal conflict, internecine warfare, boastfulness, regret, grossly dishonest promises, jockeying for position and favour, and acts of shamelessly unveiled partisanship by clever pretenders will all eventually end or subside considerably.

Getting down to business, as we have learned over the years, is best realised sooner rather than later and such awareness has grown, albeit slowly, to become a part of our evolving political culture.

You see, there have been times when extreme urgency, following encroaching complacency, abruptly entered the picture to dampen overflowing, but fleeting exuberance.

In 1981, George Chambers declared the fete over and it was time to get back to work. Five years later, financial stringency entered the routine lexicon of governance forever. Through the years, declarations on the state of treasury holdings have accordingly become a mandatory feature of newness.

Today, urgency associated with national well-being has offered up fiscal menus associated with overdrafts, borrowings, raids on rainy-day savings, dampers on state and private spending, and the dreadful thought that there might be assets suitable for disposal.

“Fixing” denotes a now familiar refrain of disrepair – in our case chronic and systemic – and the stuff of joint enterprise. Yep, “all ah we”, suggesting serious challenges against hope. Because I pay close attention to our youth, I can tell you that hope is a quality in short, as opposed to abundant, supply.

It also provides little comfort that the embrace of new solutions to address a deficit in confidence has not been meaningfully prescribed. This space has harped on just one area of forsaken opportunity (and there are many) – the digital reality.

Our young people, as digital natives, have recognised the negligence. And this is not only about generative AI which is essentially a tool made available by the timeless, spaceless character of digital spaces, no more than the way hammers and screwdrivers are critical to activities at a construction site.

What is even more important is the proposed architecture and its relationship with lived and natural environments. There are real experts in this sort of thing who can extend the metaphor.

That T&T lags behind so many, of like developmental status, on this question suggests that the same urgency attached to diagnoses of poor economic conditions is not being assigned to key components of serious solutions.

We shall see, in due course, whether this point is being understood. For instance, it is built into the question of remote work (currently lost in puerile public discourse), together with concerns about things like the “ease of doing business” and the conduct of routine citizen transactions.

Mind you, there is messaging in this not only for state systems but in the way the private sector also does its business. True, personal experience does not the entire story tell, but poll friends and family and colleagues and listen for yourself.

We have simply not been getting this right. And I am concerned that there is a level of demotivation that’s happening among our young people born into the digital age. And they are protesting through withdrawal as they, and the tools they use, are presented as problems and not as solutions.

“How does it feel to be a problem” W.E.B. Du Bois once memorably asked.

I have contended here before that while the more seasoned folk ought to be there to provide context and memory, the drive to achieve “digital transformation” should be in the hands of the under-40s.

There are numerous indicators of success or failure in our five-year tranches, but I propose to maintain vigilance over this one. Yes, there are urgent, immediate needs that require rather rare, enlightened engagement, but I know that I am not alone in keeping an eye on this.

The last time I left this country, I was asked to complete a silly little form with an additional, forgotten field I wrote by hand, in crapaud foot, at the back. When I returned, there was no room on the other form for the full name of my country. I lost yet another pen to a fellow traveler, and half the flight forgot to sign the back of the same form for customs.

I once asked an officer what eventually happens to these forms. Yes, I’m done here. I gone oui.

 

Election Money

Among the noteworthy developments arising out of last week’s General Election, and the run-up to it, is the fact that despite the prior fuss over the need for independent, international monitoring of the process, very little has since been said about the work of two observer missions in the country.

Such a shortcoming has been observable across the political spectrum in the post-election phase. Instead, “we won” and “we lost” have been the two dominant narratives signified by cheers and tears for which first-past-the-post electoral arrangements are widely known.

The numerous passionate public appeals, correspondence, memoranda, and meetings to ensure external monitoring now seem like distant echoes in a fast-flowing tributary of public commentary and contemplation.

First, the frantic calls met by the open resistance of those in charge, then acceptance and muted surrender, to public slander on the presumed primordial instincts of a Caribbean team.

Then emerged the support of the 56-member Commonwealth – still, to some, not representative of “international” scrutiny, as if a team from Malta, Dominica, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Maldives, and Guyana, with support from a UK-based Secretariat had not met the basic features of geographical spread.

A larger 12-member Caricom group comprising electoral officials and experts from eight countries did concurrent work. And, by the way, the government of T&T was not responsible for financing these activities.

The focus post-election, so far, has been almost exclusively on the constituting of a new political administration, attending to internal convulsions, and the challenge of making good on extravagant promises.

In the process, barely concealed partisan posturing has turned to both open revulsion and gratuitous applause - the agenda for change consequently located along a spectrum of the impossible and the eminently possible.

Thankfully, there are now independent experts, with no distinguishable dogs in the recently completed race, to dissect the details with data and evidence.

Meanwhile, as has been the case in the past, international observers have come, they’re seen, and they have reported (at least preliminarily) with some reminders and guidance on getting things right the next time around.

I need to remind us of at least three issues placed on the table for consideration by the Caricom Observer team of 2020 which closely align with the observations of the Commonwealth team of 2015, and again in 2025.

These include campaign finance reform, digital transformation in matters related to elections, and accessibility issues regarding the elderly and disabled.

It should not have taken COG Chair, Evarist Bartolo of Malta to remind us of the 10-year-old recommendation to “prioritise this process” of electoral campaign finance reform.

For, even at that time, the issue was nothing new to us. The first report of a Joint Select Committee (JSC) appointed in November 2014 to “propose a legislative framework to govern the financing of election campaigns … ” had already been submitted in 2015.

Three elected MPs of 2025, on both sides of the House, are among the signatories to that 10-year-old report which proposed, among other things: “limits on private campaign financing of political parties and candidates in order to promote fair competition during elections and reduce incentives for corruption and undue influence in politics.”

The issue gained traction for some time, including consideration of an appropriate “independent and professional regulatory body” to monitor and consider sanctions for breaches.

The EBC was favourably considered by the JSC, and an amendment to the Representation of the People Act was tabled in parliament for debate in 2020. It included the idea of a National Election Campaign Fund, in part to address the question of private funding and the potential for the negative impacts identified by the 2015 JSC report.

It was suggested that most major actors were supportive of the kinds of reforms that would not currently have us in a state of confusion regarding the identities of “financiers” of a brief but intense election campaign with visible spend in the millions and millions of dollars.

I have suggested in the past that the main beneficiaries of campaign spend should also be among the entities for which mandatory disclosure is a requirement. These include both private and state media – who almost all earn substantial revenues from electoral campaigns.

Meanwhile, we have political parties that built their campaigns around the notion of transparency and accountability – key attributes of responsible governance – and who now must give legislative teeth to their stated commitment to such values.

It should not require impartial international monitors to remind us of this. It should happen as a natural outcome of political intent expressed on the political platform. Let’s see how that goes.

Our Wounded Civilisations

The gracious pronouncements of party leaders Dr Keith Rowley and Kamla Persad-Bissessar in defeat and in victory respectively Monday night was a welcome, comforting experience at the end of a brief but bruising election campaign.

Even so, the injuries sustained, even by celebrants, will require that we pay much closer attention to the way we engage such contests in the future.

A few years ago, I met a woman during a Caribbean assignment. She was a divorcee with two adult children resulting from a particularly abusive marriage. She told me that several times after being attacked, she awoke in a hospital bed.

There were short-term and lasting physical and emotional injuries – some of them evident in the tone and manner of her narrative and behaviour, and in visible features of her physical appearance.

Throughout the period of abuse there was little to suggest that things had gone badly wrong. Everybody, including the attacker and child witnesses, were putting on a pretty good show.

The conversation I had with that person came to mind last week when a colleague said it appeared that every time we have an election in T&T a period of emotional “recovery” is required, even by the declared winners.

I used the word “convalescence.” Not the paralysing type that brings silence and inaction, but of the variety that generates a facade of normalcy. I thought, for example, of the numbness expected to greet racist remarks, insults, disinformation, defamation, and other forms of normalised verbal violence.

In other Caribbean territories I know well, emotional cover is also required against the threat and experience of actual physical violence. Instances of this are few and far between here, but there is professional guidance that does not make a sharp distinction between the body and the mind.

To reinforce this, my friend recommended I read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk. It’s not my kind of reading so I reluctantly listened to one portion of the audio version.

The writer’s basic assertion is that “trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) also appears to have collective, communal characteristics, in the sense that populations undergo processes of denial, guilt, and pain while putting on a splendid show in the face of internal convulsions – much like the wounded lady.

We occupy a Caribbean space in which the injured abound. For instance, psycho-social wounds persist over 40 years after the fall of the People’s Revolutionary Government in Grenada. Who can also deny that Jamaica’s political violence between 1970 and 1980 (more than 800 people were killed in the 1980 elections) has not left scars requiring continued treatment?

Guyana’s decades-long political trauma spanning the late 1950s and into the 1980s remains evident in the tenor of the political discourse and actions of 2025. There are open wounds left unattended after many years. Examine closely, for example, current convulsions in Tuschen and Georgetown. Any “recovery” clearly remains incomplete.

In T&T, we can begin the comparisons years before 1970 and 1990, but much has already been said about the hangovers from those dramatic events that remain today.

We have not had the death and physical traumas of some of our neighbours, but our minds and therefore our bodies, have kept the score. At election time, some politicians and their supporters ensure the scoreboard keeps ticking.

Head of the Council for Responsible Political Behaviour, Dr Bishnu Ragoonath recently reported on  “racially charged and derogatory language, character attacks, excessive negative campaigning, and the removal or defacement of opponents’ campaign materials” when he described breaches of its code during campaign 2025.

This is the limit of the Council’s responsibilities, much like the requirements of the Sixth Schedule to the Representation of the People’s Act which prescribes a Code of Conduct for Political Parties to “regulate the behaviour of members and office holders of political parties, aspiring candidates, candidates and their supporters, promote good governance and eradicate political malpractices.”

It is not within the scope of either the Council, which operates as an institutional check on political behaviour, or the Code to monitor psycho-social impacts. That’s our brief as citizens.

It is however the responsibility of the main political actors who provide the ammunition and triggers that routinely take us to the A&E each time we are required to engage electoral decision-making. This year has been no exception. We must endeavour to put an end to this. Monday night signalled some promise – through both cheers and tears.

The Media Challenge

Last Wednesday, the Media Institute of the Caribbean (MIC) convened a virtual “conversation” on regional media coverage of elections. The panellists included Dr Steve Surujbally, a former chairman of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) who has served on election observer missions all over the world.

Alongside Dr Surujbally was decorated Jamaican journalist, elections observer and former Editor-in-Chief of the Jamaica Gleaner, Wyvolyn Gager. Then there was T&T-based Saint Lucian journalist, Peter Richards, who has covered numerous Caribbean elections.

The background to this exercise was the fact that this year as many as ten elections are likely to be held in full and associate Caricom member states. Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI) was the first to go to the polls on Feb 7 and the Progressive National Party (PNP) maintained its hold on power there.

Next up, on February 26, was Anguilla where the Anguilla United Front (AUF) under now first-time female premier, Cora Richardson-Hodge, turned the tables on the incumbent Anguilla Progressive Movement (APM).

Curaçao, where there is proportional representation (PR), held its elections on March 21 and Gilmar Pisas was returned as prime minister. On the immediate horizon are T&T on April 28 and Suriname (PR) on May 25. Not far behind are Guyana (PR), Jamaica, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and we do not know what will happen in Haiti.

Such a backdrop was useful to declare since there are unique, interesting features of each country’s electoral system and practice requiring clinical dissection, and lessons to be learned regarding media coverage of encounters there.

Though media performance was the main focus, we spent some valuable time fleshing out the view that there are systemic issues associated with our electoral systems that do not do not always produce outcomes of the greatest democratic value. I will explain what I mean by that in a while.

Relatedly, it was argued that “voter apathy” had become a recurring fixture of elections, in part because of a lack of confidence in the ability of the process to reflect collectively fashioned views on our countries’ developmental paths.

Accounting in part for this is the fact that our political parties have been efficient at identifying symptoms of our dysfunction and not always focused on key structural, causative factors.

Additionally, there does not exist a perfect electoral system and informed national discussions focused on fixing key elements are needed.

Yes, this is not a new concern, though we generally operate pretty tight systems with high levels of institutional accountability and responsibility in most instances.

The political organisations that mobilise for electoral contests should find ways of integrating the prospects for change, if required, as part of their platform talk.

Moreso, journalists should better acquaint themselves with such matters so as to expand the coverage of campaigns and the entire elections process beyond routinised claims and counterclaims and outlandish promises.

For journalists, elections should also increasingly be recognised as a process and not as a singular event confined to campaigns comprising claims and counterclaims, gratuitous doses of defamation and character-assassination, spectacularly contrived defections, and the disingenuous insertion of personal taste and views into expert and reportorial narratives.

There is a concern that while there is abundant focus on some discrete components of the electoral cycle that begin and end with announcement of an election date and declaration of a result, there are important features of what happens between elections often ignored or inadequately addressed.

Additionally, with voter education being a key output of election reporting, there are parts of the process that are too often neglected or under-reported outside of isolated fiascos associated with them.

Focusing on these areas requires critical and knowledgeable journalistic attention to existing electoral and representative systems and their impact on the sustenance of democratic conditions.

For example, does the first-past-the-post constituency system produce outcomes truly representative of “the will of the people?” What becomes of the 39% or 42%, or even the 10% or 15% of the electorate that did not support the victorious politicians?

Every time the T&T constitution is being discussed, this comes up in the context of the PR option – too often minus thoughts on the desired version of the system. Guyana and Suriname offer different approaches next door and there are others elsewhere.

No time for all this now though. In under one week from now, we shall see where slick and shabby campaigns, and predictable narratives have taken us. The journalists who have contained their personal enthusiasm have played their important parts, but hopefully in the knowledge that much, much more is expected.

Some important differences

Let’s face it: Most of us simply want the things around us to work properly – nature, people, machines, institutions, systems. To the extent that we can speak about an “average citizen”, we can safely conclude that such a cohort would rather get on with life, its joys and its challenges, and to do so safely, in good health, and with as few inconveniences as possible.

There should also be the means to participate in society devoid of significant need when it comes to shelter and other economic, social, and cultural rights.

It is therefore totally understandable that a country’s power arrangements, in all their manifestations, enter the equation at critical points of such aspirations. It is also natural, that in the cut and thrust of election campaigning these matters would dominate the public discourse. Mind you, we are not alone in this.

In the Caribbean, this year for example, there are likely to be as many as nine national elections, including the scheduled but highly unlikely encounter in Haiti. In every instance, the meeting of basic needs dominates the public discourse, as it should.

Pay close attention, as I have, to those just past and to the others to come, including ours, and you will recognise vast areas of common concern, together with all the familiar assets and liabilities of our heritage of political culture and practice.

We can discuss at another time, if you wish, the colonial legacy and the extent to which we ought to be able to begin taking responsibility for ourselves as citizens and as polities.

Even so, there is a declining yet significant number of people in our countries for whom solutions and progress are viewed solely within the context of what the political institutions of their own durable private/tribal choice or taste can achieve. Alternatives are pre-emptively discarded as unrealistic options.

This is also despite the fact that in most instances there is little to separate the prescriptions of competing parties. There is no fundamental philosophy to distinguish them from each other.

Everywhere, there is the lure of the theocratic state, for example, leaving unfinished business when it comes to key areas of human rights. It is amazing the harmony on LGBT+ rights, capital punishment, the subservience of the state under the powers of the Church, among others.

There is, as well, psycho-social reliance on authoritarian behaviours both by the ruled and the rulers. Hence, non-resolution of important rules of the governance game including the separation of powers, and the degree to which post-colonial thought remains entrenched in our constitutions in the letter of savings clauses or after the spirit of unchallenged power.

This makes solutions-driven decision-making declarations rather illusory - “fixing” things expressed purely as abstruse and deceptive expressions of essentially immovable personal or collective preference. It’s more difficult to conceal such a condition nowadays – that fixing things is an exclusive tribal preserve.

That said, there remains a lot to be done, and a long history of shortcomings. Digital transformation in both the private and public sectors is sluggish and insufficiently deep.

There is, understandably, a lot of emphasis on public service developments because people simply do not have the options that are otherwise available within private enterprise.

But tell me the difference at the counter of a bank or insurance company and the one facing you at any state agency. Be honest.

Burdensome business processes in the private sector easily match inefficiencies in the state domain. Serious people routinely recognise the digital facades. Make no mistake about it, these two areas of concern –  the digital lag and archaic business processes - are evident across the board.

We can all also speak about depravities in private health, whatever the undoubted and tragic deficiencies in our system of socialised medicine. There is however little in the public domain to distinguish differences in approaches to fixing these things by those who claim superior credentials.

That said, and back to the politics, there are behaviours that ought to determine important, albeit narrow distinctions. Actions executed and things said at times of deepest, darkest societal need, for instance. The resort to ad hominem attack over reasoned argument. And, of course, a notion of the genetic superiority of one group over another.

These are the things, even above the transactional aches, that should make a difference in the end. When choices need to be made.

 

New and old T&T election business

Stick around long enough in the media business during election season, and you’ll recognise the substance in the old, biblical saying that there’s “nothing new under the sun.”

Our elections repeat familiar themes: party defections, propaganda (aka fake news), mysterious financial flows for campaigning, criminal charges, unethical behaviour, race-baiting, bribery, grossly over-inflated/unrealistic promises, and endless finger-pointing. The methods may change, but the plot stays essentially the same.

Even party rebels have become entirely predictable as an election story. Poll the generations and detect variances in “wow” factors regarding the party “switcheroos” - a word launched in the local lexicon by late T&T Guardian EIC, Carl Jacobs in the early 1990s - later borrowed by me, and “corrected” to read “switchcross” by editors of a UWI publication on the 1995 elections.

Still, none of this predictability makes elections dull or unimportant. Despite strikingly similar party agendas and shared reliance on state-driven solutions, electoral results should help shape public opinion, influence policy directions, and sharpen national priorities.

Consider actions against the scourge of violent crime, chronically (and in my view erroneously) focused on policing as supreme anodyne. Can you tell the difference between the parties, apart from the faces? GML’s Bavita Gopaulchan’s interrogation of some key players Monday together with platform rhetoric have not identified fundamental differences, though there is nothing to suggest an absence of genuine concern.

Also “economic diversification”- a fanciful term that pops up every cycle but rarely leads to comprehensive follow up, with every party hypnotically drawn back to energy revenues.

Heading into 2025, it all seems predictable. The way political content is being generated and spread appears to be a singular area of real change. Yesterday’s pamphleteers and propagandists are today’s social media activists, armed with memes and AI. Paid social media teams have long been assembled. The WhatsApp groups are teeming.

Meanwhile, much of the panic around AI-generated content - deepfakes, fake audio, doctored videos - isn’t about brand-new technology tailor-made for political deception. Even basic manipulation, enabling forged signatures and edited clips, has been around for ages.

The disgraceful Cambridge Analytica scandal of 2010 wasn’t the first or last of its kind either, though it did help push data privacy laws forward and brought current thinking on cybercrime more in line with reality.

Still, generative AI can make deception easier and more convincing. While AI isn’t the core problem, its misuse highlights how far some will go to mislead. The real issue seems to be the belief that dishonesty can win votes.

Cue the social scientists, now better known for off-the-cuff/top-of-the-head media “comments” as substitutes for studied research which, even so, needs to extend beyond the exclusive use of historical data. We should better understand the perils of over-reliance on both methods of explaining current realities.

But we can still look at some issues of historical fact for initial guidance. People are buzzing about the number of parties in this election - 17 in total. But that’s not a record. There were 19 in pandemic-stricken 2020. And back in 1976 and 1981, we had 11 and 12 respectively.

Voter turnout? Even the legendary 1986 33-3 landslide had a 65.45% turnout - still below the 88.11% peak of 1961. We’ve hovered around 65% average for decades. Without a major, phenomenal, shakeup, that’s unlikely to change.

But those with historical and contemporary interest would be well-advised to seek out some demographic indicators that have been largely absent in much of the current guesswork. I think there might be some important differences in 2025.

The presence of international observer missions is also more likely than not to confirm the professional conduct of the Elections and Boundaries Commissions (EBC), ritualised claims against which have never been proven outside of the predictable mauvais langue.

Ditto the importation of votes. I have before pointed to the existence of migration data to disprove longstanding mythical claims of 1961 malfeasance involving neighbouring island populations, and today there is the same kind of ole talk surrounding Venezuelans.

As for leadership changes close to elections? Not new. George Chambers became prime minister after Eric Williams’ death on March 29 and was appointed party leader after the fact, winning the elections of November 9, 1981.

ANR Robinson was chosen to lead the NAR months before the 1986 win. Kamla Persad-Bissessar won leadership of the UNC in January and led the party to victory in May 2010. The first time Keith Rowley entered an election as leader of the PNM was in the 2015 win.

In short, the drama might look different, but the stories are mostly the same. Let’s challenge ourselves to recognise today’s differences if there are any.

T&T’s digital drag

Though it does not currently appear to be the case, it should occur to all April 28 competitors that among the voting population there now resides a large cohort of adult folks who consider election promises to be dispensable fluff unless a clear path to achievability is offered.

This is defiant of even stubborn traditional loyalties and punishable by rejection of the entire system of electoral selection. Survey first and second-time eligible voters and see what I mean.

They, more than others, see that the penalty for not paying close attention to the “hows” of the numerous “whats” is the pain we repeatedly endure each time campaign dust settles and we begin going about our business in the expectation that some critical features of our lives will change ... for the better.

Among the common threads is the notion that the achievement of modernity in the conduct of public business has the potential to assure better outcomes. For the digital generation, this is an indispensable pre-requisite for deeper personal engagement.

For this group, an efficient, technology-driven government is not a luxury - it is a necessity. They view digital transformation as a prerequisite for deeper civic engagement and trust in leadership.

Let’s face it, there exists no fundamental ideological differences among the several contestants. There is no one on the national stage, for example, suggesting that the state should withdraw substantially from service delivery in key areas including public health, education, social infrastructure, and Eric Williams’  1973 direct and indirect control of the “commanding heights of the economy.”

Today, there is the challenge of engaging, even within the context of these longstanding philosophical commitments, the task of dragging the country, seemingly kicking and screaming, into the realities of vastly changed times.

This space has been used too many times to remind us that the digital economy is no longer a matter of choice and that hesitation on this matter is costing us dearly, inclusive of the psychological detachment of the young.

These people know that the resolution of challenges goes beyond the mere acquisition of the available technological tools and resides in the mindset that drives receptivity or rejection. There are numerous examples of where we lag significantly behind.

Every single political party, for example, has lamented difficulties regarding the “ease of doing business.”

The tech experts are meanwhile unanimously declaring that among the major obstacles is the fact that both private and public sector lethargy has contributed substantially to the current state of affairs and that the challenge exceeds the requirements of regulation and legislation.

Online government services are unreliable and the slow private sector embrace of appropriate technologies - through employment of digital façades to mask manual backends – has meant that things are almost purposely meant to proceed slowly and inefficiently.

No! An “online” transaction does not end in the ability to download a PDF for completion before emailing back to the agency! My online payment should not take days “to process.” You’re doing it all wrong because you do not truly trust it. It’s not paper and signatures and flesh and blood at a counter.

Until I see battalions of under-30s in the frontline of the required progress, I will remain sceptical about any real commitment to change. So don’t come to me with this “ease of doing business” bellyache without telling me how you propose to make the promised changes through readily available technological solutions that render transactions more cost-effective, seamless, and with the impact of lowering (not increasing) the cost of doing business.

Additionally, a brief word on the so-called “cashless economy” – an admirable objective that does not deserve casual, ill-advised rejection. All change involves real and/or perceived risks.

Cashless transactions, depending on how things are arranged, can in fact come up against privacy and other issues if we do not learn from others. But the wider, undeniable benefits of security and convenience demand that serious attention be paid to proper execution – if we ever reach that point.

A visually impaired beggar in India was recently photographed seeking contributions via a QR code on his t-shirt activating a phone cash transfer! The latter practice is widely employed throughout Asia and parts of Africa.

Speaking (embarrassingly) of which, we are among the last few Caribbean states to move to implement online Arrival Cards for incoming passengers. The story behind this goes beyond the availability of the technology and resides deep within negative mindsets.

There are loads of other things for voters to think about. These include words and behaviours that have served to jeopardise electability. Get past that and this country’s embarrassing digital lag needs to be among the top tier issues for decisive consideration.

Those election observers

Having decided that more good than harm can come from the presence of more than one international election observer group for our April 28 elections, Prime Minister Young has now invited the Commonwealth and the Carter Center to play such a role alongside original Caricom invitees.

Caricom has already replied positively to the request, and I understand a process is already in train to constitute a team, develop its terms of reference, and initiate deployment at the collective expense of member states – as is usually the case.

Unfortunately, publicly expressed doubt as to the bona fides of Caricom involvement has had the effect of devaluing an act of regional fraternalism, denying the remarkable nature of the grouping’s past record, and fictionalising the extent to which any individual Caricom official is typically and influentially engaged in execution of the mandates of observer groups.

There are other reasons advanced in the public domain which, for me, are a source of much shame, and will not be addressed on this forum today.

The suggestion of potentially dishonourable conduct also casts defamatory slurs on past missions that have performed creditably in numerous Caribbean countries, including here, over the years. Only last week, associate member state Curacao hosted a Caricom electoral mission.

There are several other countries that have activated such support including those that have experienced highly problematic processes and outcomes.

It is a service Caricom has provided since 1997 when an observer group was deployed in Guyana.

Like other international guidelines for such teams, the main duties involve observing the entire process including the prevailing socio-political climate, monitoring election day activities, and observing and assessing the political environment following declaration of results.

Commonwealth guidelines developed in 1991 and revised in 2018 (it has been conducting observer missions since 1967) also make specific reference to a variety of rights and responsibilities.

These include scrutiny of the registration, nominations, and election days processes, the conduct of campaigns, and the behaviour of contestants and their parties. There is also a wide spectrum of other responsibilities that have to do with the communication of political messages, the neutrality of officials, ballot secrecy, and the conditions under which votes are cast with a special eye on the elderly and disabled.

Unlike Caricom where member states are invited to submit nominees for participation – usually elections officials and people with observer experience - the Commonwealth accesses a wider variety of skills directly, and mostly without reference to the governments of countries to which team members belong.

Additionally, a request for a Commonwealth mission, according to the revised guidelines of 2018 “can emanate from a variety of official sources, including the Head of Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs or Chair of the election management body.” The Commonwealth Secretariat secures the funding for the exercise.

In the case of the Carter Center, once invited, its team “must be generally welcomed by the major political forces and/or accredited by electoral authorities” in order to proceed.

These are just three of several creditable sources of international vigilance over electoral processes. There are others including the Organisation of American States (OAS) that have been active in the region.

One of the other things observer groups do is to examine the degree to which a wide variety of stakeholders including political parties, business, labour, NGOs, and the media, play roles in promoting and monitoring sound electoral practices.

I am spending some time on the role of election observers and the bodies that manage them because it is important that people understand what to expect from them. I have been an advocate for a greater role for media in providing at least basic guidance on such matters and not remain content to regurgitate outlandish claims.

There is also a role for academia in this and I am noting the paucity of adequately researched material and general instruction even on the work of observer groups.

Additionally, following our 2020 elections, there were three main recommendations from the Caricom group. These include campaign finance reform, digital transformation (!), and accessibility issues regarding the elderly and disabled.

The “observer” role thus extends to domestic spaces in the years between elections. Civil society vigilance is equally important to help guard the guards. But it’s a duty we citizens and ordinary folk all appear to have abandoned.

 

*Wesley Gibbings has covered numerous regional elections and trained journalists on election coverage throughout the Caribbean and in Fiji and served as a Commonwealth observer in Sierra Leone in 2023. He has also co-edited a manual for Caribbean journalists on coverage of elections.

Our Immigration Story

*First published in the T&T Guardian on March 19, 2025

By the time this is published, the country would have already entered a fresh and irresistible phase of intrigue, confusion, and general bacchanal as the natural outcome of another election season.

All of this is being packaged against the backdrop of current concerns about immigration practice and malpractice on the part of others. There has been no shortage of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. Cheering and jeering in some cases.

I have however noted repeatedly that on this issue we, as a nation of migrants, can be described as both subjects and objects – victims and perpetrators.

The awkward management of Venezuelan and other migrant challenges, the general lack of public and even official awareness of the language of orderly migration, and the pervasive presence of xenophobic sentiment, even as political ammunition - “close de borders, close de borders” - all point to an unsatisfactory state of affairs at several domestic levels.

This inconveniently points to matters transcendental of occupation of political office. The three cases I reference today actually span political administrations. Electoral preference appears irrelevant. It has not mattered much who has been prime minister or line minister.

Indeed, the most significant areas of dysfunction and failure have defied the complexion of political office. Such issues earn only passing mention in election manifestoes and even more superficial reference on the hustings.

What, for instance, are the feelings of politicians about the fact that immigration practice appears to routinely defy the spirit of international conventions, domestic legislation, and basic principles of humane state conduct?

It’s discomfiting when you think about it. Our official posture on immigration, as expressed in administrative practice, is in fact not vastly different from what obtains in some other parts of the world where visas and other entry and resident rights are being deployed as tools of reward and punishment.

Here now are three examples of our own problematic approaches. The first is young creative, Omar Jarra, 26, who came to this country as a child with his father, Gambian medical consultant, Dr Ebrima Jarra. Omar was himself born in The Gambia.

Since the death of his father in 2013, he has been the victim of a bureaucratic maze that has left him, in the words of an online petition on his case, “without legal recognition” in the country.

I have met him several times and admire his outstanding work in drama and song but only Saturday came across the petition in support of his appeal to escape “statelessness.”

The fine details of his plight will require more space, but you can view the entire story in the Change.org campaign bearing the banner ‘Justice for Omar Jarra: End Statelessness & Bureaucratic Negligence.’

There are, of course, technical details to traverse – but certainly not more than a decade’s worth of paper pushing! What about the “processing” of his case should take this long?

Even so, this is less time than my second example which concerns a Guyana-born widow – her husband was a Trinidadian - who has been resident in this country for over 40 years and is yet to acquire full citizenship despite her best efforts.

Her adult children were all born here, she owns property, pays taxes, votes, and considers T&T her home. What takes decades to provide a proper response to such an application? How many pages constitute such an exercise? What is the size of her file?

Finally, and painfully, I have been withholding public exposure of the travails of highly decorated Guyana-born Caribbean journalist and professional mentor Rickey Singh.

The full story of his journey to eventual, shameful rejection by this country in the late stages of his life will someday be fully disclosed.

Not by him, because the once prolific writer/editor/press freedom advocate has been silenced by illness for some time now. But he spent the pandemic period languishing at the hands of administrative indifference in T&T and is now in Barbados in poor health.

Now, there are few other public figures in our region who have promoted the idea of a single Caribbean space as Rickey has over decades. In the end, the conditions to accommodate him here simply did not exist. We failed him and what he stands for.

In Omar’s “Innocence Proclamation” – penned as an addendum to his online petition - he speaks of an “end to bureaucratic negligence and statelessness.”

This, he contends, “is about the systemic oppression of the stateless, the displaced, and the wrongfully accused. It is about reclaiming human dignity and ensuring that no one is left without a name, a home, or a future.”

Are we prepared to leave it at that?

 

Caricom’s communication gap

Bear with me for this circuitous, but I think necessary, approach to addressing what is being dismissed by too many as an elementary issue regarding effective communication and the effort to manage the current barrage of challenges to Caribbean survivability.

Make no mistake about it, among the several features of the current global environment, dominated by superpower extortion and coercion, is the prospective dismantling of multilateralism and collective action as solutions to developmental needs.

Look today at where countries have long been rallying to the cause of shared resources and vision and witness the unravelling impacts. The challenges are nothing new but have intensified in recent times everywhere you turn.

Caricom’s longstanding embrace of open regionalism (maintaining a strong core while pragmatically embracing external opportunities) as a coping mechanism involving small, vulnerable states has predisposed its constituents to generally elastic approaches to changing external conditions.

In the process, and as part of the accompanying perils, anomalous global and hemispheric alignments have often proven disruptive. There is thus understandable room to agree to disagree on some things.

If it’s of any comfort, this is neither something unique to us nor new to integration movements wherever you find them. But the astute management of information flows is a constant, pervasive, mitigating requirement.

For us, in this small space and constantly confronted by questions of sustainability, there is a much more urgent need to ensure that conditions exist for sustained joint endeavour and that the populations involved are a knowledgeable part of it.

In the context of its indispensability to the region and given the importance of cohesive approaches to developmental demands, there have been successive examinations over the years of the work of the Caricom Secretariat as administrative centre of the integration project.

A few adjustments have followed, but insufficient to achieve the level of modernity, responsiveness, and leadership required under demanding circumstances.

As explained earlier, this is a lengthy introduction to the single point of effective communication as an institutional imperative indicative of the vital connection between the integration process and the people for whom it has been designed.

For example, it took a full week for the communiqué emerging from the Caricom summit in Barbados between February 19 and 21, to reach media and other interested parties.

By the time the document reached us, foreign ministers and other officials were scrambling to address several new and emerging issues. These included the Cuban medics and US visa threats on Caribbean officials, the cessation of Venezuelan oil licences, and that country’s incursion into Guyanese marine territory.

The outcome has been that some critical features of the belatedly released conference communiqué became lost in the immediate news agenda.

There has since been nothing to remind us of the continuing relevance of a few key points considered at the summit. Yes, there is a role for media and others in this and some of this has already occurred – Haiti, for example - but to focus on this responsibility would be to miss a major point.

Believe me, I am aware of the process to distil the proceedings of such meetings into a single, concise, publicly chewable document. I have been there myself.

Such an exercise must simultaneously meet the criteria of precision and timeliness and generate minimum discomfort among sensitive, self-aware hosts, participants who lead countries, their official contingents, and the numerous bureaucrats charged with ensuring that countries are not left angry, confused, or dissatisfied.

However, as has been the most recent case, the main purpose of such communication is too often lost in a maze of political and bureaucratic behaviours.

It must occur to all concerned that particularly in the current geo-political environment some principal elements of public communication need to be more urgently met.

This is why, in almost all other groupings of this kind, prompt accounts of discussions held, and decisions made are considered as almost important as the deliberations themselves, with communication teams forming an integral part of the proceedings.

Should the latter not be the case, information and communication departments become little more than post offices for dispatch. Resultingly, in the modern era, such a responsibility can be easily displaced by social media algorithm, propaganda, parochialism, and misinformation.

However, if from the start media are thought of as a needless, routinised bother and nuisance – as now seems to be the case - then all concerned should be prepared to confront the fallout.

Just a little advice.