(Former T&T PM Basdeo Panday and his daughter, Oropouche West MP Mickela Panday)(This column by Siddhartha Orie has not been edited, except to adjust formatting for the Internet. Ir reflects Orie's personal views. It also appears in the Trinidad Guardian on Monday July 27, 1990. Orie is a poet and writer based in Trinidad)
The political demise of UNC’s Suruj Rambachan in the first gladiatorial contest of who is the boss in the UNC heartland of Chaguanas is a clear indication that the political cemetery Panday so often enjoyed sending his political opponents to (in the past) has now been relocated as a family plot—for the sake of his convenience—to the back of the Rienzi Complex.
Just a couple weeks ago I wrote that, based on Panday’s losses at two internal party elections (one against a Ramnath team and the other against a Ramesh-led team), anybody associated with Panday in any future internal election becomes—via the law of logical deduction—an endangered species.
So was it written, so has it come to pass—and to no lesser a person than the formidable front-bencher, Suruj Rambachan. Other than Panday, there is hardly anyone in the party who is intellectually capable as Suruj, and look what has happened to him.
What then is in the cards for all those lesser mortals Panday surrounds himself with?
The truth of what happened on Monday is the revelation that Panday no longer has the ability to consign any of his opponents to any cemetery. Not only that, but those who stand with him, they too would very likely end up at the back of Rienzi.
The irony of those who choose also to perish with their boots on (like their boss) is the fact that most of them would do so not out of any burning loyalty to him, but simply because of their fears of being sent to that cemetery he threatens to send all those who dare cross swords with him.
Once upon a time, that was a good threat, you know. But that threat, which was like a promise, in truth, has become today just badly recycled ashes to ashes and dust to dust.
From after 1976 to 2003, everybody aligned with Panday rode his back to get into Parliament. One does not deny that truth. However, in 2007, the equation changed so imperceptibly that even the best analysts among us failed to see that the UNC only survived to fight another day because of other people’s intervention—and money.
Let’s make a long story short: is there anybody in their right mind out there who seriously believes that Adesh Nanan could have beaten COP’s Anand Ramlogan?
The Tabaquite seat was already a COP seat, already Anand’s seat, a foregone conclusion, and it was only Ramesh’s last-minute intervention there that returned it to the UNC.
Hurriedly, I say, I hold no brief for Ramesh, but the facts are what one must stand in defence of. More importantly, with Ramesh returning to the UNC, and with COP’s shining star being eclipsed as a consequence, the UNC had new life injected into it, while the COP lost its earlier momentum (which, via Anand’s appeal alone could have got it more than just Tabaquite).
Truth is, the UNC was in danger of losing several of its “safe” seats until the Tabaquite drama unfolded. The fight in Tabaquite therefore was the defining arena for both the COP and the UNC—in that it sparked life into the floundering UNC while it drained the lifeblood out of the COP.
The point is the UNC did well to win 15 seats (not only because of Panday this last time around) but in spite of him.
What happened to Suruj was only a delayed re-enactment of what might have happened to the UNC in 2007—were it not for the participation and contribution of people other than Panday.
Fact is, without those same people on his side, the UNC’s humpty dumpty story has started for real.
That is why today there is a growing tragedy unfolding in south/central, where Rienzi Complex—once a symbol of Panday’s greatness—is destined to become a sad and desolate monument to a golden opportunity frittered away out of mindless egoism, and thus left shrouded in an epitaph written in the tradition of Omar Khayyam’s poignant words in his Rubaiyaat:
“What might have been”... had lesser mortals not felt like gods?
Siddhartha Orie Via e-mail
1 comment:
Interesting perspective voiced here. It speaks to the fact that a party and a movement can be carried by personality and figures only for so long - for it to remain relevant and continue to grow and prosper, it must necessarily move beyond the politics of personality. Perhaps that's too strong a statement - personalities will always be important, but the voice, message, and image of a political movement must go beyond being a soliloquy and mature into a chorus.
Post a Comment