MENDING THE THA ACT TO MAKE THE NUMBER OF ELECTED ASSEMBLYMEN AN ODD NUMBER WILL NOT SOLVE THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN TOBAGO. 
PARLIAMENT (PNM AND UNC) MUST AMEND AND PASS THE TOBAGO SELF-GOVERNMENT BILL TO CREATE A FREE AND EQUAL UNION BETWEEN TOBAGO AND TRINIDAD! 
The 6:6 tie in the elections to the 12-seat THA has exposed a festering sore in the architecture of the Assembly and the THA Act.
The Political Leader of the PNM is reported as saying:
‘“If it is that the law is required to be adjusted, then we will do that because this deadlock is not easy to unravel. I am awaiting senior counsel advice as to what the law means in this situation and the PNM will follow the law.’
The THA structure in the THA Act is 12 Assemblymen and has been so for a long time. So, the possibility of a tie is not new or sudden. 
Some have suggested that what is needed is to add or remove an Electoral District to have an odd number; one to act as the ‘tie-breaker’.
The political crisis in Tobago is not a mathematical problem. 
Some have suggested that the President can name a Chief Secretary and that 18 -18 in the Parliament was a ‘precedent’.
Well, the law governing the Parliament is the Constitution and the law for the THA is the THA Act. The President can, in her ‘own deliberate judgement’, decide who appears to have the support of the majority of the elected MPs. In the THA, the President CANNOT appoint a Chief Secretary. That is the purview of the Assembly.
In 1996, the UNC-DAC and PNM amended the THA Act to give authority to the President to decide who appears to have the support of a minority of elected Assemblymen and appoint a Minority Leader. With the new crisis of 6:6 tie, now, they can both take the easy way out again and simply increase the number of elected positions to 13 (like was done after 18:18), but this will only be putting a plaster on a deep sore in the politics of Tobago and the country.
Still others are saying what must be done is to pass the Tobago Self-Government Bill now before Parliament because it provides for 15 elected Assemblymen which is just a different odd number from the 13-seat suggestion.
Now, both the PNM and PDP have suggested that the ‘popular vote’ should be used to break the stalemate.  But the electoral system of First-Past-The-Post in all elections in this country, Parliamentary, THA and Local Government rejects any notion of the majority of the Popular Vote.
ALL these proposals cater to and provide for the self-serving  partisan interests of those whose focus is the winning or holding on to positions of power in Tobago.
None of these suggestions will resolve the fundamental issue in the Tobago-Trinidad relationship – Converting the Forced and Unequal Union imposed by the colonial power in 1889 and continued under Independence into a FREE AND EQUAL UNION.
To achieve this fundamental solution to this historic issue of the Trinidad-Tobago relationship which President Richards, on the 50th anniversary of Independence, described as ‘an area of darkness’ in our Constitutional arrangements.
The Constitution (Amendment)(Tobago Self-Government) Bill, 2020 as presently drafted claims to recognise the ‘equality of status’ between both islands and Tobago people’s right ‘to determine, in Tobago, their political status…’. [The Constitution (Amendment) (Tobago Self-Government) Bill, 2020 (ttparliament.org)]
However, the Bill does not go far enough to fully establish a FREE AND EQUAL UNION between Tobago and Trinidad.
While I support Hochoy Charles and the PDP leadership for recognising that this 6:6 tie has created the opportunity to deal with the Self-Government Bill, I suggest that the Bill must be amended to fully recognise the Right to Self-determination for Tobago.
In my submission to the Joint Select Committee in June 2018,[the_foundation_for_the_self.pdf (clydeweatherheadsite.net)] I said:

• In the current conditions of the 21st century, self-determination for any people in a forced and unequal union must include up to the right to end such union – to secede. This right cannot exist for one but not the other ‘people’ in Trinidad AND Tobago.
• To be clear, the right to self-determination, up to and including the right to secession, does not mean that the right will necessarily be exercised by the people of either ‘island’. It is no more a certainty than is divorce in a marriage between 2 individuals, merely because the right to divorce is inherent in the right to marry.
• This notion of self-determination was included in the Constitution of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla and after the departure of Anguilla is retained in the St. Kitts-Nevis Constitution. A two-thirds majority of people voting in a referendum for secession is the mechanism established in that instance.

This crisis has now imposed on both the PNM and UNC yet again the opportunity, more, the responsibility to solve this Constitutional ‘area of darkness’ once and for all and establish a Free and Equal Union between Tobago and Trinidad in the interest of the country and the people of both Trinidad and Tobago.  
Let us see if our Parliament will rise to the occasion and provide a real solution and not just another quick fix like was done in 2013.
 
Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Seeking Real Solutions and
Fighting for Democratic Renewal
 
27 January 2021

MY RESPONSE TO THE QUESTION, INFLUENCED BY DISTRACTIVE PROPAGANDA - ‘HOW MUCH OF THESE CHILDREN ARE YOU WILLING TO TAKE?:
“How easily you are taken into a direction of trying to turn this issue into a matter of individuals when the issue is a matter of how the State is dealing with its responsibilities and much more.
Whether I (or any other individual citizen) am personally willing to accommodate a migrant child is a skillful deflection from the issue of what is the Government and the State apparatus doing about its duty to the nation to secure its borders and to treat with illegal immigrants in a civil and humane manner as part of its duty to the nation and international relations.
The US is using its ‘might is right’ imperial power to try and impose its ‘regime change’ strategy on Venezuela and the Venezuelan People.
As part of its strategy it is using economic embargo and seizure of Venezuelan assets, military build-up across the border in Colombia, in the Caribbean Sea, etc and the threat of military intervention all as part of its imperialist strategy.
The migrant issue is connected with and part of the US interventionist policy.
Trinidad and Tobago has resisted US pressure to join a few Caribbean leaders in becoming supporters of the US intervention in Venezuela.
It is vital that the People of Venezuela resolve the internal issues within their country without outside interference.
It is important that they resist the US interventionist pressure to impose an illegal regime acceptable to Washington.
Trinidad and Tobago and its People must unite with and support the Venezuelan People in their fight for self-determination and against foreign intervention.
As part of this unity and support the Government of Trinidad and Tobago must continue to resist the US pressure to support its interventionist strategy against Venezuela.
Our Government and nation must also continue to treat with Venezuelan migrants in a principled and humane manner.
We must continue to work with the Venezuelan authorities and People to address the issues of protection of the borders and immigration by close and organized cooperation.
The situation is not uncomplicated.
However, the side issue of how we treat with children must not be allowed to become a distraction from the fundamental underlying issues of the unity and solidarity of the People of Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago and the entire region to prevent our region from becoming a zone of imperial intervention rather than the Zone of Peace that CARICOM has declared.
This is a situation that requires us to think much more broadly than whether we support the PNM or a PNM government; or whether this or that individual is willing to accommodate a Venezuelan migrant child.
To focus on such matters or in that way plays into the hands of the dangers of imperial interventionist strategy and dividing, rather than strengthening the unity of the People of Venezuela and T&T.
We need to grasp all the complications of this situation and continue together to find the way forward in our relations between our countries and peoples.”.

Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for
Democratic Renewal
​27 November 2020

​MY RESPONSE TO A GRANDMA WHO ASKED - WHAT EXACTLY IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WHAT OUR AUTHORITIES HAVE DONE TO THESE VENEZUELAN CHILDREN AND WHAT THE U.S. AUTHORITIES DID TO LATIN AMERICAN CHILDREN?:
“Unfortunately, across the globe, and here in T&T, whether something is right or wrong is it determined by acceptable social norms and standards.
Who does something; in whose interest and for with what objective are now used to determine whether the same act, view or position is right or wrong as a matter of social question.
For the last 4 years, Trump and Co’s xenophobia, racism, fascist hate-peddling, etc have been excused by some as ‘that’s his way’.
There is no fundamental difference between Trump’s ideological-political thinking and that of fascist Axis led by Hitler, Mussolini and Tojo in the 1930’s - 40’s.
But fascism of the Nazis et al is condemned while the fascist ideology and actions of the “leader of the free world” are acceptable or at least excusable as the quirks of an individual.
Here, in T&T, the same hate-peddling racist and divisive language spewed by various individuals and groups has been made to be condemnable or excusable depending on whether it is ‘we’ or ‘dem’ who peddle the same wares.
For 6 decades, with the imposition and consolidation of 2-party unrepresentative politics and government, using the fig leaf of “race-based” politics, right or wrong is reduced to prejudice of whether one supports the red or yellow, the ‘African’ or ‘Indian’ party (both of which actually represent the interest of the rich and powerful parasitic oligarchy- the 1%).
So-called ‘identity politics’ is a tool sowing hate, division and special sectoral interest-views and positions on what is right or wrong, acceptable or excusable when it comes to the views and actions of either side of the red-yellow divide.
What is most unfortunate is that this wholly utilitarian, self-serving and eclectic ideology and thinking is gaining strength as being socially acceptable.
This is exactly what happened in Germany when the ‘final solution’ and notion of a superior Germanic-Aryan race were being inculcated in the social psyche of the German society and body politic.
Acceptance of the detention and deportation of children (putting some on pirogues hired by de Government onto the open seas over night) because I’d ‘we’ party and ‘govament’ doing it, will be taking us further along that dangerous road of ‘identity politics’ and right and wrong depending on Who does it and not What is done.
What the Government here did (which a Court has ruled as contrary to our law) to children is NO DIFFERENT from what the Trump administration did to the Latin American children.
The abuse of children is WRONG whoever does it!!
While we are busy dispensing self-praise for our ‘fight’ against child abuse because we have set up a Child Protection Unit, Gender Violence Unit in the Police Service or a Children’s Authority, we cannot accept ABUSE of Venezuelan children by Government at the same time.”

Clyde Weatherhead
A Citizen Fighting for Democratic Renewal
26 November 2020