Like Jamaica, which observed its 40th freedom birthday on August 6, Trinidad and Tobago is heading into a new general election.

The nation's Parliament is being reconvened tomorrow amid intense controversies, in a second attempt by the Patrick Manning administration to secure the election of a Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

A recurring question that explains some of the tension over the current state of governance of the country, is whether there will be another hung parliament, as happened at the December 10, 2001 election that resulted in both major parties securing 18 seats each for the House of Representatives, with no functioning parliament since.

For all the mind-boggling criminal acts that continue to plague both of CARICOM's 40-year-old states, it is Trinidad and Tobago, where the petro-dollars continue to flow, that has experienced more political turbulence than any other CARICOM (Caribbean Community) country since independence.

A most welcome departure from such a comparison -- the racial divisions and political polarisation characteristic of another plural society of the Community, Guyana -- is that the multi-ethnic, multi-religious people of Trinidad and Tobago have managed to avoid the frightening fratricidal warfare that had Trinidadians survived a botched military coup in 1970 followed by the historic "Black Power" wave of protests that some continue to discuss in the context of a 'revolution'.

Like the first abortive coup of April 1970 involving military personnel, the second abortive coup 20 years later -- that of July 1990, organised and led by the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen -- lacked both credibility and popularity.

COSTLY UPHEAVALS
Against the backdrop of such dramatic and costly social and political developments to the country, Trinidad and Tobago remained a society with robust credentials in multi-party parliamentary democracy, judicial independence and freedom of the media.

The resilience of its diverse ethnic and religious communities to overcome challenging social and political problems has been frequently demonstrated by that abounding capacity to laugh at themselves -- without necessarily being frivolous.

Even at times of tense political controversies, involving parties with popular support bases rooted among predominant ethnic communities of Trinidadians of Indian and African descent, the country has succeeded in avoiding going over the brink to national disaster.

This is not to ignore the at times suffocating levels of demagoguery, and what Trinidadians themselves refer to as "robber talk" by their politicians. Or the bitterness and spite of politicians, trade union officials, and even academics and social commentators.

Or, the acts of revenge in which holders of some of the highest public offices in the land, as well as politicians too often indulge

Such behaviour has been quite in evidence within recent years, and moreso since the seasonal electoral "changing of the guards" that started in the 1980s with an end to some three decades of rule by the People's National Movement.

That was to be followed by the one-term administration of a then ANR Robinson-led National Alliance for Reconstruction administration, and the subsequent high and low points of six years of government by Basdeo Panday's United National Congress, based on two elections.

This week, Trinidad and Tobago will continue with its "forty days of celebration" to mark 40 years of independence.

The politician who has so decreed this period of "celebrations" -- undoubtedly with new election very much in mind -- Prime Minister Patrick Manning, is the same one who, as head of an earlier administration, had misconceived of himself as the "father of the nation".

That was to prove embarrassing even to Manning's own party whose founder-leader, Eric Williams, is appropriately credited with that title of national tribute.

Williams's vision and political sagacity today are openly praised by erstwhile opponents such as Panday, and beneficiaries like Manning.

And they are doing so amid the ongoing, eight-month old impasse over the state of governance and the sense of frustration with 'election politics' of the electorate of a nation that is viewed as the cradle of the Caribbean Community.

Now 40, Trinidad and Tobago has been continuing a tradition, started by Eric Williams with his Caribbean Aid Consortium in the 1970s, in reaching out with financial aid to its CARICOM partners.

But its current Prime Minister may experience difficulties in delivering pledged aid to cash-strapped Dominica before a new general election.

The country has already been identified as the headquarter base for the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) that is scheduled to be inaugurated not later than January 2004.

Whatever its detractors may say, having such a regional court headquartered in Port-of-Spain must also be viewed as a tribute to the independence and integrity of Trinidad and Tobago's judiciary

It is yet to move with the foresight of Jamaica to either open the meetings of its various parliamentary committees to media reporting and analyses -- up to when there was a functioning parliament in 2001. And still to have a functioning Public Information Act like either Jamaica or Belize.