Kamla’s first 100 days
By Andre Bagoo Sunday, August 29 2010
T&T Newsday.
ON MAY 25, Kamla Persad-Bissessar was sworn-in as this country’s first female Prime Minister. Her first 100 days in office, which will be marked this week, has seen controversy, challenges and important milestones.
While Persad-Bissessar has aimed to set herself apart from previous office holders, a review of her first 100 days in office reveals marked similarities between the opening of her tenure and that of two of her predecessors: former Prime Ministers Basdeo Panday and Patrick Manning.
A Sunday Newsday analysis of thousands of pages of newspaper clippings, public records and government releases relating to the first 100 days of the first terms of Persad-Bissessar’s two most recent predecessors reveals similar approaches to: issues of conflict of interest in public offices; Cabinet appointments; the review of state entities; travel and the issue of crime.
At the same time, Persad-Bissessar has also set herself apart from her predecessors: differing markedly on the issue of media relations; the treatment of the problem of flooding and on Budget consultation.
ECHOES OF BASDEO PANDAY’S TERM
The issue of crime was an important one in both Persad-Bissessar’s and Panday’s first 100 days. For example, during Panday’s first few months in office there were several brutal murders.
Panday was sworn in as Prime Minister on November 7, 1995. In the last week of November 1995, 25-year-old teacher Leslie-Ann Ramsey was gunned down and a man was also executed that week, his hands and legs chopped off.
In the first week of December 1995, there were two brutal murders: Joseph Clovis and Walter Junior Hamilton. A contractor was gunned down on December 17, 1995. A Toco fisherman tied up, his throat slashed on December 18. Brian Davis found dead in a drain and Lalcham Roopan, 32, found dead at the side of a road over the Christmas holidays. Nicole Agard stabbed to death on February 3, 1996. On Feb 21, Clint Huggins, one of the State witnesses in the Dole Chadee murder trial, was sensationally murdered.
As part of his plans for dealing with crime, Panday appointed a retired member of the Defence Force to head the Ministry of National Security: Brigadier Joseph Theodore. Almost fifteen years later, Persad-Bissessar would do the same: choosing Brigadier John Sandy.
During Panday’s first term, the issue of reviving hangings is raised: on February 7, 1996, Theodore is appointed to chair the Mercy Committee as the call for the resumption of hangings grows. Similarly, under Persad-Bissessar, the capital punishment issue has been pushed to the fore-front, most notably by her Works and Transport Minister Jack Warner who has called for murderers to hang. Sandy has also backed the call.
The first legislation tabled by Panday was billed as an anti-crime one: it established the offence of holding a fraudulent passport. Similarly, Persad-Bissessar on June 2 meets with her National Security Council and immediately promises to table several bills to deal with crime, bills which are later laid in Parliament.
Like Panday’s Cabinet – in which she was, incidentally, appointed as the first woman Attorney General in 1995 – Persad-Bissessar’s Cabinet is short on women. At the swearing-in of Cabinet on May 27, 2010, she tells the press that she would have liked to see “more women”. There are five female ministers or about 17 percent of the total Cabinet. This compared with Panday’s three female ministers which then represented about 15 percent of the Panday Cabinet.
Both Panday and Persad-Bissessar created controversy with ministerial appointments and saw issues over the conflict of interest of ministers holding more than one post emerge. For Panday, things became heated when it emerged that his Agriculture Minister Dr Reeza Mohammed still held his post as UWI lecturer. He would hold on to that post for at least three months, even after appointment and in apparent defiance of university rules.
For Persad-Bissessar, it was almost deja vu, when controversy erupted over the appointment of Minister of Works and Transport Jack Warner, who has held on to his post of FIFA vice-president. Persad-Bissessar adopted an arguably stand-offish approach: assigning the issue to Attorney General Anand Ramlogan for legal opinion. Ramlogan opts to commission legal opinions of lawyers, opinions which are released on June 17, 2010, backing Warner.
Ramlogan’s appointment, too, raised some degree of debate, given his history of legal cases brought against the State. The debate resembled that which occurred when Panday replaced Persad-Bissessar with Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, a lawyer with a strong public law practice, for Cabildo Chambers in February 1996.
Persad-Bissessar leads a coalition Government comprising the Congress of the People (COP) and the Tobago Organisation of the People, the TOP. Like Panday, one of the first things Persad-Bissessar did upon assuming office was set up a Ministry for Tobago Affairs, headed by Vernella Alleyne Toppin.
Panday, who was then also leading a coalition government with the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR), had done similarly: on November 10, 1995, he appointed Pam Nicholson to be the Minister for Tobago Affairs.
Additionally, Panday also appointed ANR Robinson, the leader of the NAR, as “Minister Extraordinaire”. Winston Dookeran was also that month given the vague title of “Minister of National Unity”, a post which is arguably similar to that now held by the Persad-Bissessar appointed Minister of the People Glenn Ramadharsingh.
KAMLA MAKES HER OWN WAY
Echoes notwithstanding, there are clear differences between Persad-Bissessar’s first 100 days and Panday’s. Panday’s relationship with the media was rocky from the start: he called for a boycott of the Guardian and for a firing of editor Jones P Madeira within his first 100 days in office. His boycott ended on February 9, 1996, after a meeting with regional publishers. In contrast, Persad-Bissessar, minutes after she was sworn in, defended members of the media who had gathered at Knowsley, Port-of-Spain, to interview her. She now enumerates a policy placing the freedom of the press in high regard.
While both Panday and Persad-Bissessar complained of ill-heath in their first days in office, Persad-Bissessar has been able to perform her functions almost without significant interruption. In contrast, Panday was rushed to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex on December 17, 1995 after suffering chest pains. He later underwent angioplasty surgery on December 30, 1995, in London and returned to Trinidad on January 6, 1996.
KAMLA from Page 3A
Also, Panday’s first 100 days were arguably rockier: the country underwent tremendous anxiety after some learnt for the first time that Panday had a criminal charge pending against him from before the 1995 election. Then the new Prime Minister, Panday attended court on November 14, 1995. Three charges of sexual misconduct against him were discharged. The decision in the case had been delayed for still unclear reasons.
Both Panday and Persad-Bissessar had to contend with the issue of the legacy of the Jamaat, the Muslim sect which attempted a coup d’etat in 1990. During his first 100 days, Panday reportedly agreed to entertain a delegation of the Jamaat for a meeting to discuss the issue of a debt the sect had for damage done during their uprising. Panday failed to make any public moves to set up an inquiry into the 1990 coup, despite calls for such.
But this appears in stark contract to Persad-Bissessar who, on July 22, 2010, announced a Commission of Inquiry into the 1990 coup. Under the new Prime Minister, the Attorney General’s Office also pursues a debt action for damages owed by the Jamaat, with an auction on August 17, 2010, netting $5.2 million of a $42 million debt. Persad-Bissessar also sets herself apart given her response to flooding. Mere minutes after being sworn-in on May 26, 2010, she gets to work dealing with flood-relief action. The day after she tours flooded areas in Trinidad. She orders her MPs to go out on the field and does so again later, in June, July and August.
COMPARISONS TO MANNING’S FIRST TERM
Persad-Bissessar’s first 100 days will also inevitably be compared with the first 100 days of her immediate predecessor: former Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
On June 26, 2010, Persad-Bissessar opened up the Prime Minister’s Residence and Diplomatic centre at La Fantasie, St Ann’s, Manning’s former residence, to children. The venue is also, controversially, used for UNC party caucus meetings, with members of the Opposition arguing that the complex should not be used for partisan politics.
But while she had privately expressed the view that she would not want to live at the residence, later that month the Prime Minister is scheduled to move in. She hosts a gala for Commonwealth students visiting Trinidad on July 29, 2010. Food and drink flowed at taxpayers expense, members of the Opposition were this time invited and members of the media were let in for the early part of the event, which was largely attended by UNC party members.
Both Manning and Persad-Bissessar have had to deal with crime. For instance, after Manning was first sworn in as Prime Minister on December 16, 1991, several murders rocked the nation.
Elsa Constatine, 66; David Ortega, 31 and Dipchaud Manoo were killed over the Christmas/Boxing holidays in 1991. In January, 1992, businessman Ishmead Ali, 40, was shot dead at an Old Year’s Night party. The next day top cop Hubert Williams was revealed to be the main suspect. On February 23 the body of an unidentified woman was found in the posh Goodwood Park. The next day, a High Court judge, Justice Lennox Deyalsingh, condemned the crime wave hitting the country and called for swift justice.
Manning’s approach to crime, though, in his first 100 days was considerably quieter than that of Persad-Bissessar.
And, Persad-Bissessar has exercised her executive powers in markedly different ways. While Manning’s first appointment to the post of Acting Prime Minister was unelected Senator Dr Lenny Saith (he was appointed to act on January 22, 1996); Persad-Bissessar has appointed, thus far, only elected MPs to serve in the post: Warner and Minister of Finance Winston Dookeran.
Like Manning, Persad-Bissessar, has been concerned with fulfilling campaign promises within her first few weeks in office.
Manning, on December 22, 1995, called a special three-day training session for ministers in line with a PNM campaign promise. Similarly, Persad-Bissessar has been intent on providing, via her Minister of Education, laptops for Secondary Entrance Assessment students for use in secondary school, even in the face of controversy over the $83 million expenditure.
Also, Persad-Bissessar endured controversy for her administration’s handling of the issue of pension reform, with new legislation appearing to contradict her coalition’s campaign promise of a pension for all without criteria of $3,000 from the age of 60. A virtual conditional grant for persons over 65 is passed in Parliament instead on August 10.
Manning’s administration in its first stages also reviewed and probed projects of the former NAR Government such as the Labour Intensive Development (LID) programme, much in the vein of what Persad-Bissessar’s is doing today in relation to larger-scale state bodies like Udecott, Petrotrin and the Housing Development Corporation (HDC).
Unlike Persad-Bissessar, Manning announced the Budget mere days before it happened. On January 13, 1996, he said the Budget would be on January 17, 1992. In contrast, the new Prime Minister has made an effort to encourage consultations ahead of an announced date of September 8, which was announced on August 22. Today, the Budget, averaging around $40 billion in scope, is arguably a more complex affair than it was in 1991 or even in 1995.
There is another mark of Persad-Bissessar breaking from the ranks of her predecessors: the frequency of her international travel. The new Prime Minister has travelled more often than either Panday or Manning did in their first 100 days.
There was a high-profile trip to Jamaica, where Persad-Bissessar made headlines for her dancing skills, in early July. And then, in August, with Parliament vacationing, the Prime Minister went on a ten-day trip to New York, a trip that was said to be official, but which provoked much criticism. Other trips to the United States were made, including one to Miami in July.
As a result, the new Prime Minister has been criticised for jet-setting at taxpayers’ expense in an historic first 100 days in which she has both jettisoned and echoed some of the practices of those who came before her.
