BASDEO PANDAY
25 YEARS ON PANDAY FACES:
MAHA - MOTHER OF ALL BATTLES
Dr Hamid Ghany
Sunday Guardian
October 7, 2001
Page 11
Basdeo Panday: Bio at a glance
Basdeo Panday now faces the sternest challenge to his political career, as three Ministers who served for five years in his first administration have parted company with him and are now engaged in "strategic alliance" talks with Manning and the PNM in order to remove him from office.
And this, as he celebrates 25 years in Parliament at the Queen's Park Savannah today.
In the midst of this struggle, Panday continues to cling tenaciously to the quest for national unity, while his former colleagues attempt to taint him with the slur of corruption in his administration.
He is preparing for what may be the political fight of his life. He is adamant about national unity, while his former colleagues are attacking him on the issue of corruption by some in his Government. He also is prepared for any eventuality when he says he was not born Prime Minister and he does not have to die Prime Minister.
That is the signal of a man who has made peace with himself and who will spare nothing in defending himself and in continuing the battle to achieve what he set out in political life to accomplish more than 35 years ago, which itself began where it is now - in Couva.
On September 13, 1976, Basdeo Panday was elected Member of parliament for the Couva North constituency. For that general election, the former constituency of Couva had been divided for the first time into Couva North and Couva South. Kelvin Ramnath was elected as the new Member of Parliament for Couva South.
As Political Leader of the United Labour Front (ULF), Panday was appointed Leader of the Opposition by President Ellis Clarke on the basis of the fact that the ULF had won ten seats, while the Democratic Action Congress led by Mr ANR Robinson had won two seats in Tobago.
DR Eric Williams and the People's National Movement (PNM) had won 24 seats and he was reappointed Prime Minister. He formed a Government in which there were five former Ministers who became backbenchers by virtue of the fact that he did not wish to have them in his administration. These were Brensley Barrow, Sham Mohammed, Carlton Gomes, Lionel Robinson and Victor Campbell.
Panday and the ULF were born out of a desire to unite the labour movement in this country by forming a political party that could reasonably address the issue of the division of labour by race.
Under the theme "oil and sugar must unite", Panday, Raffique Shah, George Weekes and Joe Young were at the vanguard of what may be considered to be the first politically credible attempt to provide an alternative to the PNM.
The 1966 attempt at a labour party in the form of the Workers and Farmers Party was a failure in the 1966 general election, as all the candidates lost their deposits, including Panday, who contested the Naparima South constituency and got 326 votes in a contest that was won by Alloy Lequay, who got 6,013 votes as the Democratic Labour Party (DLP) candidate.
He remained committed to the labour movement and subsequently became leader of the All Trinidad Estates and Factories Trade Union. As a labour leader, he entered into an alliance with Shah, Weekes and Young to form the ULF, but the results of the general election showed oil and sugar had not united.
Indeed, it was only in the former DLP strongholds that the ULF was able to win seats, as the PNM continued to hold on to their strongholds and a couple of marginal seats. However, the results showed there were cracks in the PNM armour that may be exploited politically in years to come.
The results in Tobago were historic, as the PNM was defeated for the first time since ANR Robinson won the Tobago seat for the PNM in the Federal elections of 1958. Now it was Robinson who was winning Tobago East as Political Leader of the Democratic Action Congress (DAC).
Other cracks in the PNM armour were seen in Nariva and Pointe-a-Pierre, where its candidates won their seats because of split votes.
Panday was all set to launch a new political offensive that was going to take the challenge directly to the PNM on the issue of labour unity as a means to bridging the gap that existed between the major racial groups in this country.
His early efforts were dealt a severe blow in 1977 when Shah and five other ULF Members of Parliament broke ranks and sought to have his appointment as Leader of the Opposition revoked.
President Ellis Clarke revoked the appointment of Panday and appointed Shah as Leader of the Opposition in accordance with the provisions of Section 83 of the Constitution.
However, Shah's appointment did not last, as one of the MPs supporting him (Winston Nanan) defected and returned to Panday. On March 31, 1978, Shah resigned as Leader of the Opposition and shortly thereafter Basdeo Panday was appointed once more as Leader of the Opposition.
As the 1981 general election approached, the nation mourned the death of Prime Minister DR Eric Williams, on March 29, 1981.
The new Prime Minister and Political Leader of the PNM was George Chambers. Panday, Robinson and Lloyd Best of the Tapia House Group had formed the National Alliance to contest the general elections of 1981.
They lost. The PNM won the largest majority of seats it had ever been able to win when it got 26 seats. However, a study of the results showed further cracks in the PNM armour as another party, the Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR) led by Karl Hudson-Phillips, made inroads into PNM strongholds in the East/West Corridor, while hurting the chances of the National Alliance in constituencies like Caroni East and Princes Town.
The formula for a new National Alliance lay in the results of the general election, but the question was whether the ONR and the National Alliance could agree on such a formula. They did.
In the Local Government election of 1983, an accommodation between these forces opposed to the PNM was formed and the result was that they won a majority of the seats that were contested nationwide.
This was an historic victory and the prospect for further building of a national unity platform was gaining momentum, especially since the DAC had won the first-ever Tobago House of Assembly (THA) elections in 1980. They went on to win these elections again in 1984.
This confluence of events, namely the 1980 THA elections, the 1981 general elections, the 1983 Local Government elections and the 1984 THA elections represented the best chance any alliance may have had to be able to challenge the political might of the PNM.
By 1985 the genesis of the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) had emerged, and by 1986, a party was born with both Basdeo Panday and Karl Hudson-Phillips stepping aside to allow ANR Robinson to lead the new party, the NAR.
The result was an emphatic sweep of 33 of 36 constituencies in December 1986. Robinson was appointed Prime Minister and Panday was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs. Hudson-Phillips did not contest a seat and stayed outside of the Government.
By 1988, Panday and Robinson parted company and there was the formation of Club 88 as a pressure group within the NAR. Panday and his colleagues Kelvin Ramnath, Trevor Sudama and John Humphrey were expelled from the NAR.
Following the attempted coup of 1990, Panday and his colleagues went to President Hassanali to indicate they were opposed to the Government of Prime Minister Robinson and that Patrick Manning, who had been serving as Leader of the Opposition since December 1986, should be removed. Hassanali revoked Manning's appointment and appointed Panday as Leader of the Opposition.
By this time, Panday had already formed the United National Congress and he was ready to walk his own road to his often-repeated goal of national unity.
In the 1991 general election, the UNC won 13 seats, while the PNM under Patrick Manning returned to power with 21 seats and the NAR was removed from power with only the two seats from Tobago they originally had when the DAC first came into existence.
The statistics from the 1991 general election revealed the PNM under Manning was not as strong as it once was and the fragmentation of the NAR had contributed to the PNM's success. For the first time in its electoral history, the PNM was forming the Government with less than 50 percent of the national vote.
Under the first-past-the-post system, that did not matter, because the party own the majority of seats.
For Panday and the UNC that represented their only hope to capture power. He actively sought to woo the NAR supporters, and in the general election of 1995, he advocated a platform of national unity which involved the formation of an accommodation between the UNC and the NAR.
Manning and the PNM adopted a stand alone approach and that made the difference.
Panday was able to join forces with ANR Robinson to form a Government of national unity. He kept his Government alive by being able to benefit from dissent in the ranks of the PNM and two PNM Members of Parliament defected to the UNC which helped to keep the coalition government afloat for five years.
In the general election of 2000, Panday and the UNC were able to win an outright majority of 19 seats in a 36-member House of Representatives.
He had arrived at a moment in his own political history where victory was his, but his struggle for national unity was far from over.
Born May 25, 1933
Attended New Grant Government, St Julien's CM School and then Presentation College, San Fernando.
1951 - Worked as a cane weigher for a year with Caroni Ltd.
Primary school teacher at Seereram Memorial Vedic, Chaguanas, and Ste Clement Vedic, Barrackpore.
Joined the civil service as a Clerk 2 at San Fernando Magistracy. Took notes for magistrates such as former President Noor Hassanali and Churchill Johnson.
1957 - Pursued law and economics at Lincoln's Inn and London University. Also received a diploma in drama.
In England, worked as a labourer on a building site, an assistant electrician and clerk at the London County Council to put himself through university.
1961 - Performed on London stage in several plays including the Bird of Time.
1965 - Got a Commonwealth scholarship to do post-graduate studies in economics and political science at the Delhi School of Economics and Political Science in India. Missing his family, he delayed the scholarship and returned home where he practised law in San Fernando.
Became President General of All Trinidad Sugar and General Workers' Trade Union in May 1973.
1975 - Spent two weeks at Golden Grove Prison for leading an illegal march with trade unionists.
Political leader of United Labour Front (ULF) from 1976 to 1986.
First wife died in 1981. Currently married to Oma.
A founding member of the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) - a merger of the ULF, the Democratic Action Congress and Tapia.
Minister of External Affairs and International Trade in 1986.
1987 - Acted as Prime Minister when the Prime Minister ANR Robinson was out of the country.
Expelled from NAR in 1988.
Formed UNC in 1988 with former ULF colleagues.
1990 - Became Leader of the Opposition.
1993 - Turned down an offer to lead a coalition of the UNC and Carson Charles' National Development Party.
1994 - Replaces "loose cannon" Hulsie Bhaggan with Indera Sagewan.
1994 - Former United National Congress workers Pamela Gokool, Rookmin Sooknanan and Anne Marie Bilbadar file a suit in the High Court against Basdeo Panday for damages for assault on the person and body.
1995 - Arrested and placed on five charges under the Sexual Offences Act.
1995 - Sues DPP and Attorney General for malicious prosecution and false imprisonment.
1995 - Rearrested on new charges.
1995 - Wins a sexual harassment case brought against him by three women.
1995 - After the General Elections results in a stalemate, UNC and NAR form coalition Government.
November 1995 - sworn in as Prime Minister.
December 1995 - Diagnosed with angina.
December 1995 - Enters the Cromwell Hospital, London, for angioplasty surgery.
1996 - Discharged from Cromwell Hospital, London.
Father of Niala, Mickela, Nicola and Vastala.
Update: There was an 18-18 split in the December 2001 elections. President ANR Robinson appointed Patrick Manning Prime Minister.
"They believed that I would lie down and die on the ground with my feet in the air. Old politicians never die, they become more sexy." - following his arrest on sexual harassment charges.
"We are looking at the perennial problem of 'neemakharism', that is, people riding the party's back to get into office and having got there, they turn their backs, 'scorning the base degrees by which they did ascend.'
"In other words, they deliberately kick down the ladder which took them to the top." - on the introduction of his "irrecoverable deeds of covenant."
"I will die with my political boots on." - prior to the general elections in 1996.
"Mine is the most 'unsecret' ballot. Everybody knows who I voted for. It's nice to be part of the democratic process. Only problem is that I had to vote for Trevor (Sudama)." - after casting his vote in the Oropouche constituency.
"If it is God's will that I should have gone through my own Gethsemane, then so be it. I accept my cross with humility." - after being freed from the sexual harassment charge.
"I have a right and a duty to defend the Government and party against all predators, no matter how they are disguised and I advise all my supporters to use every means in order to defend the Government and the party." - in reply to a question on whether his announced ban on the Guardian did not amount to an infringement of press freedom.
"People would be alarmed to the extent which certain people in this society would go to satisfy their lust for power." - in an interview with the Guardian in 1996.