Council works for fair campaigning, change ‘picong’ politics

By Kaelanne Jordan

mediarelations.camsel@catholictt.org

As the nation prepares for general elections, Monday, April 28, Bishnu Ragoonath, Chairman of the Council for Responsible Political Behaviour, is addressing ongoing controversies surrounding the Council’s role and its critics.

Established in 2014 under Archbishop Emeritus Joseph Harris CSSp to monitor adherence to a Code of Ethical Political Conduct (see pages 12 & 13), the Council aims to ensure fair campaigning.

Ragoonath, a well-known political commentator with over 30 years of experience, was appointed to the position with the belief that his objectivity would help guide the Council’s work.

“Just last week, Dr [Keith] Rowley… decided to come out and personally attack me as a lecturer here at the University [of the West Indies] saying that I’m not doing serious research. But he included in that commentary, the fact that I’m the chairman of some council that want to monitor political conduct. And he said it in a disparaging way in how he referenced the Council,” Ragoonath said in a Wednesday, March 26 interview with The Catholic News.

He shared that prior to the former Prime Minister’s statement, the Council’s position had been endorsed by several individuals. Ragoonath mentioned that a local columnist “more or less” echoed the same sentiments in defence of the Council, “But of course they did not come under attack.”

Ragoonath acknowledged these criticisms have been largely because of his dual roles as political scientist and Council Chair.

“Is it a challenge, yes it is. Especially as we come closer and closer to elections and there’s that blurring of the boundaries as a political scientist as opposed to chairman of the Council.”

He added, “I have stopped issuing any releases for the Council in my name. Anything coming from the Council comes in the name of the secretary … Ms Leela Ramdeen…. So, I’m hoping that that serves as that break from one to the other,” Ragoonath said.

He revealed he had even submitted his resignation from the Council because, “I didn’t think that any attacks on me personally should impact on the work of the Council.”

Ragoonath explained that over the past decade, the Council has monitored around ten elections. He emphasised that when the Council began in 2015, they understood that changing a political culture rooted in “picong and bacchanal” could not be accomplished overnight.

“I don’t have a problem with someone criticising a candidate or a political party, but I have a problem with you criticising the family of a candidate who is not contesting for election…. And those are the kinds of things that the Code expressly speaks about,” Ragoonath said.

He referred to an incident during the Council’s first year when they had reason to cite United National Congress politician Dr Roodal Moonilal for breaching the Code.

“…after we cited him, he went on a political platform, and he said something to the effect that ‘I was cited or censured by the Council so I will try and not repeat those errors.’ Now that statement in itself tells us that at least some of the politicians were taking it serious,” Ragoonath said.

Youth involvement

He further commented that the Council’s “biggest shortcoming” is that it is born out of civil society, meaning it has no legal standing, “no punitive measures, no sanction in power.”

“The most we can say is this person or this group of people breached the Code…. people can simply ignore what we have to say. That is their right,” Ragoonath said.

He shared that the Council intends to resume public education campaigns with Sixth Form students, who are preparing to enter the political arena as voters and electors. These efforts were halted due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Our biggest drawback is getting funding for mass education. If we can do that, that would be of great assistance to changing the level of our political campaigning to one that is much more acceptable,” he said.

Ragoonath also acknowledged another “shortfall” in the Council’s approach: their monitoring of election activities has been limited to traditional media.

“We can’t monitor every Facebook post…. We’ve resorted to asking citizens to submit instances where they believe that the Code has been breached …and in those instances we’ve asked them to attach it so that we can access it. We need to get more younger people [involved] who are familiar with the digital age. If there are more young people who want to do some volunteer work, we’d be happy to have that,” Ragoonath said.