"As long as elections and political activity... remain confined to racial and religious parameters, our democratic development will be stymied." No, this quotation does not pertain to Guyana; it refers to Trinidad and Tobago, and comes from Bukka Rennie writing in the Guardian newspaper last week. There were many other comments in similar vein which appeared in the Trinidadian press prior to the election of December 10, which looked as if they had been transposed directly from here.

And now following the most polarised election ever, the Trinidadian people have spoken, producing a result, as in Guyana, corresponding fairly closely to the ethnic divide. It is just that in the twin island for demographic reasons it has resulted in a gridlock, with both the United National Congress (UNC) and the People's National Movement (PNM) garnering 18 seats in Parliament each. There is not even the equivalent of a GAP/WPA, UF or ROAR seat to clutter the final result.

Constitutionally speaking, this is new terrain for our sister Caricom republic since neither party can command the majority necessary to form a government. It is now left to President ANR Robinson to make a decision. That decision may be a few days in coming and in the meantime UNC leader, Mr Basdeo Panday, has made a proposal for a solution.

"I consider it mandatory," said Mr Panday, "that both political parties should respect the expressed and collective will of the electorate. I shall therefore propose to the Leader of the People's National Movement that we make partisan agendas secondary to the national interest and that we work out an appropriate arrangement for sharing power in a government of national unity." Reactions in the press to this announcement were positive, varying from the ecstatic to the cautiously approving.

"Trinidad and Tobago breaking new ground and forging ahead of its Caribbean neighbours (the whole country alive with ideas, man)..." crowed Keith Smith in the Express. The leader column in that same newspaper was more careful, but it did describe the offer as a "historic opportunity."

However, it also spelt out the dangers if the agreement collapsed and served to "let loose even more divisive emotions in the society and, thereby, render the situation far worse than it was before." All these possible negatives notwithstanding, it concluded philosophically that one can't make omelettes without breaking eggs.

The Guardian said that no one wanted to return to the polls, especially when there was no prospect of a result any different from the one already obtained. It also referred to the fact that there was really no wide difference between the parties in terms of policy; what differences there were lay in the details and in the personalities.

By yesterday, however, public response had become more muted. For one thing, Mr Manning of the PNM had narrowed the negotiating space by insisting that a national unity government would have to be headed by a PNM prime minister - a stance, which one might have thought, was dooming the talks to failure before they even began. And for another, the climate of mistrust existing between the parties was now being accorded its due weight in the assessments. In contrast to the ebullient tone of Wednesday's Express editorial, for example, yesterday's leader was less than optimistic. It began by saying that citizens found it difficult to separate the power-sharing proposal from the man who had made it. "There are many who believe," it said, "that he [Mr Panday] is not to be trusted and the plan is, in fact, a ruse to gather total power to himself." His past, said the Express, was coming back to haunt him.

Well, all of this is very familiar to Guyanese, who know all about suspicion and prior conditions on negotiations. The Caribbean waits to see whether the political leadership of Trinidad and Tobago really is ahead of the Caribbean game as Mr Smith has suggested, or whether it is the Guyana model which is pointing the way.