First Past the Post Experience in Trinidad and Tobago

• Author: Kirk Meighoo/Peter Jamadar
• Profession: Member of the Democratic National Assembly and the author of Politics in a Half-Made Society: Trinidad and Tobago 1925?2002/Judge of the Supreme Court of Trinidad and Tobago and the author of The Mechanics of Democracy
• Pages: 94-121

94| Democracy and Constitution Reform

First Past the Post

Experience in

Trinidad and Tobago

4

In this chapter, we analyse our system of elections, in the context of

creating and sustaining a parliament that is alive, conscientious,

legitimate, effective, fearless, free, representative, autonomous,

accountable, and responsible. This is so, of course, because in modern

liberal representative democracy, which Trinidad and Tobago claims to

follow, elections are the primary means by which parliamentary

representatives are selected (even though the ancient Greeks did not

believe in elections, as elections favoured the wealthy, powerful, and

famous over the participation of the ordinary citizen). Since all citizens

in modern democracies do not have the right or obligation to participate

in the assembly of citizens (as in ancient Athens) the composition of

parliament in a representative democracy assumes some importance, as

it significantly affects the character, behaviour, and activities of that

supreme institution, and even the legitimacy of the entire system of

government itself, beyond considerations of democracy.

A number of approaches can be taken to making a critical appraisal

of the electoral system. Theoretical and logical critiques can be quite

illuminating, but given our concern with effective reform, we look at

the actual operation of the system in Trinidad and Tobago. We do so in

the main by discussing key concepts associated with our elections and

then statistically analysing all our general elections from 1946 to 2002,

and all THA elections from 1980 to 2001, to provide an information-

dense, summary overview. In order to facilitate our critical evaluation,

we will be comparing our first past the post (FPTP) election results to a

straightforward List PR system.

Why do we choose such a comparison? There are hundreds of

electoral systems currently in use around the world (ACE 2003). Our

First Past the Post Experience in Trinidad and Tobago |95

electoral system is not only known as the FPTP system, but also as the

plurality single-member district system. Here candidates compete to

be the sole representative of individual constituencies (that is, in single-

member districts). All of these separate constituency elections are held

at the same time throughout the country. In each constituency, the

person with more votes than any other wins that seat, even if the leading

candidate does not have over 50 percent of votes (that is, a plurality

instead of a majority). From this aspect comes the term ‘first past the

post’, and its more technical name, the plurality single-member district

system. This is how we elect our parliament. Notably, there is never at

any time an election for prime minister.

It would be highly illustrative to compare our current electoral

system with other systems successfully used around the world. Other

types of electoral systems used today include multi-member district,

two-round, preferential, communal, semi-proportional, and proportional

systems. Only 70 out of 211 countries surveyed by the ACE project

(2003) use the FPTP system. These countries are Great Britain and

those countries have been its colonial dependencies (West Indies, Canada,

India, United States) or otherwise influenced by them. We can certainly

see this British influence clearly in our experience. Dr. Eric Williams,

architect of our independence constitutions, had argued in his seminal

1955 speech, ‘Constitution Reform in Trinidad and Tobago’, five months

before the PNM was formed: ‘I suggest to you that the time has come

when the British Constitution, suitably modified, can be applied to

Trinidad and Tobago. After all, if the British Constitution is good enough

for Great Britain, it should be good enough for Trinidad and Tobago’

(Williams 1981, 129). Surely, nearly 50 years after Independence, we

need not be required to build an argument against such colonial mimicry,

or subterfuge, as the case may be. We can perhaps be more discerning

now in our choice of electoral system.

Why Proportional Representation?

PR systems are seen as the major alternatives to FPTP. Indeed, FPTP

has been a minority electoral method among democratic polities for