Making the case

October 19, 2002
By Bukka Rennie

The Cabinet is the sole prerogative of the Prime Minister. As long as we continue to function within the parameters of the present Constitution, this will be so.

The point is that there are limits to the democratic process within the structures of such representative forms of government that we, throughout the world, like to refer to as "Democracies" with a capital "D".

And it is not only a question of the PM's choices. "Sole prerogative" indicates that the PM is not obliged to provide justification for his choices.

In fact the very moment in this context that the PM tries to provide justification for his choices is the very moment that he runs into trouble. Any justification very likely can appear or be made to appear judgmental, discriminatory, unfairly harsh, insubstantial or even anachronistic.

To say that the brother is "not ready" suggests what? Immediately speculation begins to run rife: they ent want no Rasta in Cabinet; this country is still not comfortable with too many visibly black-complexioned people being in authority, brown-skin and soft-hair are best; the boss cannot deal with the two most articulate PNM members being present at the same time in Cabinet, so he went with one and blank the other and so on and so forth.

And why offer the brother the position of Minister of State in the Ministry of National Security in the first place, when all and sundry know that the military service is by nature conservative and that the military is stringent with its members on the issue of hair growth, there being quite precise and exact notions about what constitutes proper military grooming.

Speculation is the fuel to rumour-mongering. Leadership should never provide ground for such negative development. In this case it all arose from two simple words, "not ready", falling from the mouth of the constituted omnipotent.

Further to this, social convention in these "Democracies" spelt with a capital "D" upholds the principle of Cabinet's collective responsibility.

At any Cabinet session the bossman or bosswoman can listen to the contributions on a particular issue emanating from all those members around the table, and at the end of the day he can merely say:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have listened to you all but this is how I have decided to proceed..." And he can go on to outline a number of strategies that stand completely contrary to all that was advanced by the members of his Cabinet.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that according to our constituted arrangement of things. But, and there is the rub, every member of the Cabinet is expected by acceptable social convention to then go out and promote and defend what has been pronounced. It is as if it were pure divine revelation.

Only in very rare situations is a Cabinet Minister and MP for that matter allowed to operate in accordance with personal conscience. The entire system hinges on omnipotence at the very centre. It is the only way our political system can work.

Some of us understand that better than some of us do and some of us become quite adept at working with it.

What needs to be established though is that "Democracies" spelt with a capital "D" is by far not the last word on democracy as a process and a way of life.

The history of humankind is the history of human endeavour to at each stage deepen the democratic processes by removing hindrances to further human self-fulfilment. Many of such removals have been quite violently traumatic, others have been as a result of a combination of the two extremes.

Nevertheless history is quite coherent and can be followed from epoch to epoch highlighting the benchmarks and totem-poles along the way. "Representative government" or "parliamentary democracy" is only one stage along that road.

Already there is clamour for constitutional change, for the empowerment of organised communities, and day by day centralised leadership will be pressured to accommodate this clamour from below.

All enlightened, modern leadership will have no choice but to work towards people's empowerment, which is tantamount to saying that wise leadership must compute and programme their own demise. Enough said