Democratic Labour Party (Trinidad and Tobago) - Political Impact

Political Impact

The DLP originated from the merger of the People's Democratic Party (PDP), the Trinidad Labour Party (TLP) and the Party of Political Progress Groups (POPPG). The PDP was a conservative party of the Indo-Trinidadian middle and upper-middle class with a primarily Brahmin Hindu leadership. The POPPG was a party of the white and near-white middle and upper-middle class, a small but economically powerful group. The Trinidad Labour Party was a working-class party, but had seen its support decline from 12% of the electorate in 1946 to 5% in 1956. Both the PDP and the POPPG had achieved electoral support by appealing to the Indo-Trinidadian and Afro-Trinidadian working classes, but the rise of the PNM split the Afro-Trinidadians away from the POPPG. By appealing to Sanatanist Hindus on religious and racial grounds, the DLP was able to entrench itself among Hindu Trinidadians, but the race-based appeal of the 1961 election campaign alienated the non-Indian middle class elements. Rudranath Capildeo's adoption of Democratic Socialism was an attempt to create a stronger link with the party's base, but it widened the rift with the middle class. By the early 1970s the party leadership was almost entirely Brahmin or Presbyterian Indian.

The DLP never held political power, limiting its impact on the overall direction of Trinidad and Tobago. In addition, unlike the PNM, which had a strong central leadership (in the person of Eric Williams), the DLP lacked a united leadership. The loss of the Gomes faction in 1960 and Farquahar, Forrester and Hosein in 1964 resulted in the loss of a section of the population which would remain unrepresented politically until the formation of the Organisation for National Reconstruction in 1981. Eric Williams had managed to attract much of the Muslim and Presbyterian portions of the Indo-Trinidadian population to the PNM. Even though these groups later drifted away from the PNM, Muslims remained an important constituency within the PNM until 1986.

Faced with the opportunity to expand the party through alliance with labour leaders, Rudranath Capildeo chose to steer the party away from this block. Rather than share power within the party with Afro-Trinidadians, Capildeo chose to remain permanently in Opposition. As the PNM moved away from racially threatening rhetoric, the DLP leadership was able to build a relationship with them. Many within the party accused the leadership of selling out the rank and file in exchange for political favours, but the purge of 1965 ensured that no-one remained in the party with enough personal support to be able to challenge the leadership.

The labour unrest of the 1960s and the Black Power movement of the early 1970s created other blocks of opposition to the PNM, but the DLP leadership was not able to attract these groups to their orbit. Instead, the opposition remained fragmented and disunited until the rise of the National Alliance for Reconstruction in 1986.