Throw Out The TTCB Constitution
(Trinidad Guardian)
Ellis Lewis has been elected president of the Trinidad and Tobago Cricket Board in an election that was as near to a rubber stamp as possible. Can you imagine, his opponent, a man contesting the highest post had been barred from the election hall! Nevertheless, let us wish the new president a successful term in office.
The outgoing president has boasted that his has been a stable organisation and the proof of his assertion is everybody (except himself) has worked his way for years in the vineyard, climbed the ladder to success and now enjoys his (the president's) blessing.
The result has been a static, stagnant organisation run by one man whose disciples all hope for his recognition. To ensure that, there is a constitution that makes Zimbabwe's look like the Magna Carta.
Can any of the legal luminaries on the Board tell me what position the ex-members held on Saturday when they voted? Why were the past president and the various officers, 11 of 43, entitled to vote since they then represented nobody? Why were nominated members, nominated by the outgoing group, allowed to vote? They surely represented nobody but the Board to whose recognition (generosity) they owed their nomination.
The purpose of the TTCB is to administer the game for the benefit and on behalf of the players. The Board should represent the players' interest and not anybody else's. The only people who should have been allowed to vote were the club representatives, the secondary and primary schools and the umpires.
I have done a sample of the opinions of cricketers, granted they were just 87. The question I put to them was simple. It required a one word answer and was open to no misunderstanding or ambiguity.
If you had the sole authority who would you have as the president of the TTCB? Eighty-two of the polled answered Murray and five were Lewis. Yet the TTCB, in its wisdom and stability, voted by 30-13 for Ellis Lewis and has returned all its incumbents.
This Board that has been unopposed for 47 years, has sat in on the destruction of club life, so that the likes of Shannon and Victoria have disappeared, that there are now more teams than clubs and, even so, less teams take part than did ten or 15 years ago. Yet, the TTCB seems quite pleased and proud of its stability. The president does not differentiate between stable and static or stagnant. He seems totally unaware of dynamic.
Mr Lequay came in riding the popular wave of a national Board running cricket rather than Queen's Park Cricket Club (QPCC). He died and went to heaven when that succeeded and he is still riding it. According to him, Harford a few years ago, and now Murray, have both been out to take back control for Queen's Park. The pres prefers Clarke Road.
Like a good politician, once he had got power, he was determined never to relinquish it. So, he put in place a constitution that looked and sounded quite innocent to the "innocents", and only in the latest years when challengers appeared has it been realised how pernicious was that constitution.
There are 43 votes. Included are 11 executive members, four nominated members. Can you imagine these men voting for somebody other than themselves or their fellows when elections come around?
That constitution must be thrown out now. Never again should one group be allowed to seize power and hold it to themselves in perpetuity. The name of the game for this lot has been and continues to be power, solely power. All this is cloaked in a pretence of morality and stability. The chief has warned that he will be there in 2005 and putting on his guns again.
The clubs, the cricketers, must take an interest in what goes on in their game and in their name. They must make sure they get the government they deserve. They must insist on a new constitution in which the clubs, the zones, primary and secondary schools and umpires decide who is to run cricket. The make up should be as simple and transparent as possible. The details of the new Board, the constitution, the numbers etc could be worked out and presented by the legal experts.
Nobody on the outgoing executive should have the power to vote themselves back in. The only voters should have the authority vested in them by the clubs and the umpires whose representatives' term of office should not end simultaneously with the Board's.
Come on Ellis. You say you are your own man. Show us.
* This column first appeared in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper.