THE Caribbean Community must understand its obligation to become involved in the current crisis of governance in Trinidad and Tobago in view of its implications for the rest of the region for which that twin-island republic is a major trading partner and whose instability can quickly impact on CARICOM as a whole.

For this reason, we are anxious to learn of the decision taken at last week's two-day meeting of the CARICOM Bureau in the Turks and Caicos Island at which the post-election political crisis in Trinidad and Tobago was supposed to have been on the agenda. Pity that President Bharrat Jagdeo himself could not have made it to that meeting for which the Prime Ministers of The Bahamas and Belize were present.

Perhaps a statement may be forthcoming from the Community Secretariat about what recommendation, if any, has gone forth to the Heads of Government who are scheduled to meet next month in Belize.

The public at large needs to be informed, as soon as possible, rather than to be left to guess if a meeting of the Bureau, the Community's Management Committee, could have taken place without an assessment of and recommendation on the situation in Trinidad and Tobago.

There can be no excuse for non-involvement of CARICOM in trying to break the current political impasse in a founder-member state of the Community.

We know that the former Prime Minister, Basdeo Panday, had requested CARICOM's involvement, as a logical extension of his invitation for a CARICOM observer mission for the December 10 general election. The question of relevance now is whether the current Prime Minister, Patrick Manning, has been consulted and has given any indication of his own support for a CARICOM initiative.

Media Responses
Mainstream media in Trinidad and Tobago have been raising critical questions about the new Manning administration, among them a unique 30-member strong cabinet of senior and junior ministers; and judgement of President ANR Robinson in approving about a dozen Senatorial appointments, when he had objected to appointing seven for Panday's government after the December 11, 2000 election; and about the need for transparency even about the future of the Presidency itself.

In its editorial `Time To Tell All’, the Trinidad Guardian, in urging the necessity for transparency in all aspects of public life, said:

"There is, for instance, public perception that the Presidency is being negotiated, for Mr. Robinson's term ends on March 22, and the question is whether he will be re-appointed or someone else will become Head of State, and by what means would that decision be arrived at...

"With the deadline approaching for him to demit office", the Guardian argued that "President Robinson should declare whether he wishes to continue at President's House for another term and whether it is part of negotiations with any political leader..."

The newspaper subsequently reasoned in another editorial on `Toward A Way Out’ that the sooner Mr. Manning and Mr. Panday "face the fact that neither the PNM nor the UNC which they lead, won the December 10 general election, sooner the national interest, which must be paramount in all considerations, will be served..."

The Newsday in a critical evaluation of the new Prime Minister's cabinet appointments, chose to remind him in its editorial on `Not So, Mr. Manning’, of a lack of awareness of the post-election realities and of the dangers in ignoring the "peculiar limitations and uncertain life of his government".

The newspaper said: "The fact is Mr. Manning and the PNM were not elected into office and the term length of his administration is anybody's guess, having regard to the UNC's scuttling of the parliamentary agreement worked out between himself and Mr. Panday and the current UNC campaign for a return to the polls (in six months time)..."

Last Sunday, the Express, which had earlier raised critical questions about the composition of Manning's cabinet and similarities to the Panday's policy of political patronage in job-creation at the state's expense, published the results of a poll conducted by the North American Caribbean Teachers Association (NACTA).

The results of the NACTA poll, reported the Express, found that supporters of both the UNC and PNM feel that "unless the parties can come to an agreement to break the deadlock, then they should go back to the polls..."

Going back to the polls this year seems inevitable. The question is whether there is a willingness on both parties to accept the verdict of the electorate and work together for the good of Trinidad and Tobago.