Politics in Trinidad and Tobago has a tendency to flare-up to engulf the political climate of the Caribbean.  T&T’s Prime Minister Patrick Manning has taken the sudden, but bold political gamble of calling general elections two years before they are constitutionally due.

Some Trinidadians in the Diaspora, supporters of Manning’s ruling People’s National Movement (PNM), are concerned about the snap elections. But, while other Caribbean folks are surprised, it is unlikely that Manning, shrewd politician that he is, would call an election if he believed his party could not be returned to power.

To some political analysts, the pending elections in Trinidad are really no surprise. For months Trinidad’s new leader of the opposing United national Congress (UNC), Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has been aggressively accusing the Manning government of various charges of corruption, and questionable contracts with other Caribbean governments. This includes the current  contract negotiations between the Trinidadian and Jamaican governments regarding the acquisition of Air Jamaica by Caribbean Airlines. There is little doubt that Manning’s opponents will use the anti-corruption platform to try to topple him and his party.

All across the Caribbean the issue of corruption is escalating, particularly among governments and people in public office, who use questionable means to serve their own interests instead of the interests of the people they claim to be serving. Almost every existing Caribbean government has been or is being accused of corrupt practices.  In some countries this corruption permeates the entire society, spreading from government, through the public and private sectors, to embrace criminal activities.  It is not unusual in some countries for crime to have a strong correlation with public corruption, and too often is the cocoon protecting the perpetrators of corruption from the reach of the arms of justice.

A 2009 report on corruption by the World Bank Institute ranked Jamaica, Guyana, Haiti and Cuba among the most corrupt Caribbean countries. Yet another 2009 report issued by the Latin America Public Opinion Project based on studies conducted in 23 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean labelled Jamaica as the most corrupt country in the Western hemisphere.  Other reports have referred to massive corruption, mostly correlated to drug trafficking, misappropriation of public funding, money laundering, and infiltration of security forces, in several other Caribbean counties.

What is particularly interesting is the trend where opposing parties that topple governments on the perennial anti-corruption platform sooner or later after assuming the government, are themselves accused of corruption. This lends to the assumption that corruption, or alleged corruption, is imbedded in the culture of the modern Caribbean region.

But this is hardly surprising because of the undeniable correlation between poverty and corruption, and that poverty is a common factor in the Caribbean. In fact, the 2005 UN Convention against Corruption, ratified by several Caribbean countries, stated "Corruption hits the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government's ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice and discouraging foreign aid and investment. Corruption is a key element in economic performance and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development."

Based on this interpretation it is not surprising that it’s often the poorer Caribbean countries that are accused of corruption, and the wealthier countries like Barbados, The Bahamas, and to a lesser extent, Trinidad and Tobago show stronger capabilities to control corruption.

Unfortunately, political Independence has brought an increase in corruption to the region. Clearly, a reason for this is the financial challenges experienced by some nations without the assistance of the former colonial master. But, also, there is no denying that the governments of some nations are guilty of manipulating their laws to serve their own corrupt purposes, deliberately widening the gap between the wealthy and the poor, or creating poverty where there was once wealth.

For those who can remember, the pre-independent governments of Norman Manley in Jamaica, Errol Barrow in Barbados and Eric Williams in Trinidad were not generally accused of mass corruption.  Characteristics of integrity evident among those leaders, faced with significantly less economic challenges, are hard to find today.

Sadly, if First World nations, including the US, do not meaningfully assist the region to overcome its economic challenges, especially bridging the gap between the wealthy and the poor, corruption and crime will continue to fill that gap. If the region is not taught to fish and feed itself, increasingly its people will steal the fish.

In the region’s current financial climate, without the application of practical, urgent remedies, what the future foretells is a merry-go-round of general elections, with opposition parties accusing ruling parties of corruption and the perpetual swapping of one perceived corrupt government for another. If the people consistently perceive their governments as corrupt, the cancer of corruption will eventually infect the entire body of the Caribbean, destroying its leaders and its people.