2 weeks Ago
It is not surprising that attorney and former speaker of the House Nizam Mohammed, head of the Repatriation Committee, should be calling for an election boycott if the Trinidadian women and children stranded in Syria are not brought back by whichever party takes office next week. After all, every other appeal has failed, so maybe Mr Mohammed believes an electoral threat might work. The problem with this approach is that it frames the issue as a political one, instead of a national responsibility.
Mohammed has denied being political, saying it’s a matter of human rights. However, he also advised that “Muslims, particularly in places like San Fernando West, if we do not get an unequivocal undertaking, should withhold their votes”. Since Mohammed specified a marginal seat, he is clearly hoping that fear of electoral loss would pressure the politicians to commit to bringing back the women and children who have been held in camps for over five years now, some for nearly a decade.
The president of the Islamic Missionaries Guild, Imtiaz Mohammed, went even further, saying the Government has no intention to allow the return of refugees from Syria, and called on Muslims to vote out the People’s National Movement (PNM) Government. Historically, the PNM has always relied on Muslims to get the East Indian votes needed to win office. In the party’s 1960 annual convention, founder Dr Eric Williams insisted that “Muslims are satisfied they have equal stature in the PNM” and, after winning the 1961 election, he appointed two Muslims to the 12-strong Cabinet.
Although Muslims make up just 5% of the national population, according to the 2011 census, their openness to bloc voting and the importance of the marginal seats means their support can swing an election. A 2002 poll by the late Professor Selwyn Ryan found that 37% of swing Indo-Trinidadian voters who supported the PNM back then were Muslim. However, a poll of marginal seats conducted earlier this month by political scientist Professor Hamid Ghany found that 62% of Muslims favoured the United National Congress (UNC); and just 13%, the PNM.
That should especially concern the PNM. But Mohammed’s statement has apparently also rattled the UNC, with political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, even as she described his boycott call as “strange”, promising that the repatriation situation would be fixed once people voted the UNC into office. Her deputy, Dr Roodal Moonilal, said, “I don’t think it is fair to ask for the withholding of votes to the Opposition,” and also promised that a UNC administration would engage with the families, the Islamic institutions, and international agencies to reach a resolution.
It therefore seems that this is not a partisan issue, since both the PNM and UNC have committed to bringing back the 25 women and over 50 children who, according to Mohammed, are being held in a camp in northeast Syria. Thus, no matter which party wins next Monday, both the Government and Opposition should have no problem cooperating to make this happen..
