By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 03, 2025
The United National Congress’ (UNC) overwhelming victory last Monday was nothing short of spectacular. One of my colleagues called it an Eric Williams moment, meaning that Trinibagonians had inaugurated an important turning point in our social and political history: the decimation of an old stultifying order as they ushered in a new social and political era.
Sometimes, it is difficult to discern these political/social changes in the heat of battle since we stand within its moving currents. Usually, we only discover these transformations years after they occur although we can see certain tendencies even within the political turmoil of the time.
Our geographical map tells us that something amazing happened last Monday. Except for a brief spot of red at the northernmost corner of our map, the entire island is painted yellow. In philosophical terms, our society reached a higher level of sublation, negating aspects of the past while simultaneously preserving or affirming its positive dimensions, and taking it to a higher social level.
In 1956, eight political parties and 39 independents fought the general election. The most prominent parties were PNM, People’s Democratic Party, Butler’s Home Rule Party, Party of Political Progress Groups, and Trinidad Labour Party.
By 1961, those parties had dwindled to two major parties: PNM and the Democratic Labour Party—an offshoot of the PDP. No other party won a seat in the 1961 election.
Today, the splinter parties and/or political interests have begun to coalesce around the UNC. The Progressive Empowerment Party plans to disband itself and join the UNC formally; the labour interests (the OWTU and the PSA, for example) are in the process of consolidating their political fortunes within the UNC. Neither the Patriotic Front, the National Transformation Alliance, nor the Progressive Democratic Patriots have any future in T&T’s politics. They will die a natural death.
Meanwhile, the UNC has moved to the centre of T&T’s political landscape, whereas the PNM remains a fractured entity on the periphery of the nation’s politics. Anyone who listened to Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s inaugural address at the swearing-in ceremony realises that she is organising within the ambit of the post-2025 while the former Leader of our Grief continues to revel in the irrelevance of the past.
He warned the country: “The UNC government is dangerous to this country. That populism is dangerous.”
He speaks as though the country had not rendered its verdict on his reactionary nonsense.
On the other hand, the new Prime Minister catapulted the country into the future. She says: “Our highest priority will be not just to communicate with you [her public] but to commune with you.
“Some of the seeds we plant during our five-year journey may not bear fruit for us, but our children, grandchildren and generations to come…You will be my priority. You must always know you have a leader who cares for you and understands your problems.”
What struck me most at the inaugural ceremony was the symbolic capital that was expended. Pierre Bourdieu, the French sociologist, reminded us that symbolic capital can determine one’s position in the social stratification structure and further influence the pattern of social behaviour. All the cultural acts at the inauguration function reinforced this position.
At that function, the second highest official of the land took her oath of office on the T&T Constitution rather than the Bhagavad Gita, as she did in 2010. This was an important symbolic gesture. It reiterated that her primary identity, that of a T&T national, transcended her ethnic or religious identities which sometimes stymie the full expression of our Trinbagonianness.
The inaugural programme itself was more inclusive than exclusive; more national than parochial; accentuating our future aspirations rather than our past divisions. The PM asked us “to step boldly into the future with confidence, listening to her people rather than speaking down to them”.
As the Prime Minister delivered her paean, she must have been thinking of the wisdom of Mahatma Gandhi, who often referenced the Bhagavad Gita. Gandhi once bemoaned: “When doubts haunt me, when disappointments stare me in the face, and I see not one ray of hope on the horizon, I turn to the Bhagavad Gita and find a verse to comfort me.” Auntie Kamla looked at her mother on her wall for comfort.
Auntie Kamla was also guided by Martin Luther King’s “redemptive love” which he advocated in building “a Beloved Community”. In such a community, the principles of love, understanding and non-violence prevail. That is why, at this moment of victory, as we seek to build a new society, it is important that we remember the words of Winston Churchill: “In Victory: Magnanimity; In Peace Goodwill.”
We should advance into the future with love for all, confident in the belief that this new day promises a bounty for all of us.