Stillborn Trust

The Americans have an expression – borrowed from their character- defining sport, baseball: “three strikes and you’re out!” In the contest between (round) bat and ball, the hitter is given two free chances (“strikes”) if he misses the ball. A third miss and he’s out.

In the so-called ‘new dispensation’ of ‘consensus and cooperation’ ushered in at the last elections, the opposition that secured a majority in parliament was allowed two “strikes” at building trust with the executive.

There was first, the selection of the Speaker: the opposition broke tradition and snatched both the Speaker and Deputy Speaker. Strike one! Next came the Committee of Selection. Again the opposition changed the rules of the game and seized control.

Strike two! And on Thursday, February 17, came the final ‘ball’. The government was going to present two papers on ‘Supplemental Expenditures’ for approval to parliament. Now such expenditures are inevitable fixtures of the budgeting process: it is impossible to foresee all contingencies and the work of government must continue.

Ahead of the engagement, however, the opposition telegraphed that it would be taking a cynical and opportunistic stance when it accused the government of ‘unlawful’ spending. Approval of some expenditures were finally denied and the second paper had to be deferred.

Strike three!! The opposition has just struck out in the trust department.

When then President, Lula of Brazil, was engaged in trying to defuse the tensions between the U.S. and Iran on the latter’s nuclear programme, he made an observation that is very pertinent to our fast developing political impasse. “It’s not about trusting anyone. It’s about generating the mechanics under which people can prove that they deserve that trust. That’s what it’s about.”

From the moment the results of the elections were announced, President Ramotar very forcefully articulated his vision of what lay ahead in terms of the relationship among the three parties that had secured seats in parliament. He spoke of the need to build trust, a commodity that was sorely lacking in the body politic, and the absence of which had led to a most rancorous and debilitating political culture.

But he did not stop at the level of rhetoric, which, if the truth is told, is very cheap in the political arena. He took up Lula’s challenge and introduced ‘the mechanics under which (the opposition) can prove that they deserve that trust.’ He unilaterally established a ‘Tripartite Committee’ where the principals of the three parties could meet and freely share their proposals on ‘governance’. He was sharing a prerogative of the Executive with the opposition.

The president then went on to establish two other tripartite committees to specifically discuss security and economic matters while inviting the opposition to make inputs to the Ministry of Finance’s budget drafting process. He also acceded to the opposition’s request to nominate individuals to the Committee of Tax Review that he had earlier established. Then and afterwards we expressed scepticism over the president’s magnanimity in establishing these mechanisms for the opposition to demonstrate they were deserving of trust.

Apart from our knowledge of the demonstrated hawkish proclivities of the major players in the opposition, there was the early tip-off from the leader of the combined opposition. He demanded a direct substantive policy-making role in the budgeting process.

It was a paradigmatic example of our ‘give an inch and they’ll take a mile’ fears.

So the question is: Where does the president go from here? When the opposition would try to derail a specialty hospital for our country, (that is being funded by a ‘soft loan’,) one would expect him to accept that his ‘mechanics of trust’ has ‘sussed’ out the opposition. It may seem that they are not interested in the development of the country but only in scoring cheap political points.