In politics, public perception, accurate or distorted, is the factor which more than any other determines either public adulation or rejection.
Further, as has been demonstrated in the developed world, such popular perception is a commodity easily moulded and manipulated by the popular press for or against the most effective or corrupt politician, or group of same.
This, in my humble opinion, is a cardinal failing in the democratic system.
Nowhere was this level of public deception more easily, deliberately and transparently achieved than in multi-racial and politically polarised T&T between the years 2000 and '03.
That the populace was so deliberately and effectively deceived was a result of several factors.
I can personally attest to the fact that prior to '03 no criticism of the democratic abuse of 24/12/01 or the PNM it favoured was afforded the exposure it warranted.
By 2003 however, not even a partisan press could continue to ignore the failure of the Manning administration in power. Only then did the media resume their suspended responsibility as the Fourth Estate!
As in most ex-sugar producing former West Indian colonies, the commanding heights of the indigenous economy remains in the hands of the former ruling "white" minority.
They, despite initial demonisation by Williams in '56 made common, if never admitted, profitable accommodation with Williams' Afrocentric PNM against what both perceived as the common enemy, the third and most recently arrived element in the ethno/social and political imbroglio which is T&T., the East Indian indenturees.
Significant to the deception perpetrated prior to and after the election of 10/12/01 is the fact that almost every organ of the print media is either owned or controlled by the powerful business interests based in the capital.
Thus was an ethnically biased President, himself a former high ranking member of the PNM, enabled, to their now recognised detriment, to deny the average citizen, after 6 years of the most effective, equitable and progressive administration since Independence, by the removal of an undefeated Indo-centric UNC, under whom all had benefited, in favour of a return to incompetent maladministration by the Manning PNM, to popular if misguided acclaim!
For all too brief a period the mood in POS was euphoric. Never before in that neglected capital had the disparate agendas of it's polyglot society so effectively and successfully coincided.
The only losers, then obvious, were Indo Trinidad and democracy itself.
Big business celebrated a return to "business as usual", which to them meant the demise of Indo entrepreneurship and the inroads it was making into their traditional markets.
Still blinded by balance sheets enhanced since 24/12/01 they are yet to admit to their error of that date.
Afrocentic urban ghettos welcomed the return to power of "we own kind". Little did they realise that "we own kind" would signal the crime and bloodshed which has plunged them into mourning and grief on a scale which even a society as brutalised and neglected by the PNM they so faithfully supported, never imagined possible and the wider society in, N.,S. or Central, has fared little better.
This, whether any yet realise it or not, may be laid at the feet of the primary beneficiary of the obscenity of 24/12/01.
In his determination never again to face the defeat he suffered in '95 Manning lost little time in creating another class of beneficiary.
He courted the support first of unrepentant terrorists and then of organised crime, whose notorious leaders he elevated to the status of Community Leaders, a euphemism for a licence to murder, rape, kidnap, rob and pillage at will, in the process of which Laventille and East POS have been reduced to killing fields as rival gangs murder each other for the spoils of Manning's enhanced and lucrative make work schemes, while victims, innocent and guilty alike, are devalued as "collateral damage".
Thus was unleashed a yet unabated reign of criminal anarchy, focused initially South of the Caroni but soon to terrorise the entire nation.
This is the result of Robinson's vengeance on Panday, hypocritically clothed in prostituted sentiments of "morality, spirituality and the rule of law".
And that treachery against the majority vote was acclaimed in certain quarters as an act of "Solmonic wisdom"!
Nor would any of the above have been possible were it not for the treachery of Ramesh Lawrence Mahraj, the most effective AG to date.
A brilliant, if less than principled lawyer, he knew better than most the fact that while there has never been a ruling dispensation devoid of the taint of corruption, the UNC in which he was AG had the unique distinction, when compared with either predecessors or successor, of having, despite depressed oil prices provided a level of progressive and equitable governance for all, experienced neither before '95 nor since '02.
Even if as subsequently alleged, the UNC administration was corrupt, it remains the best to date.
How, therefore, after his contribution to that disaster, can one describe Maharaj's destruction of the UNC in power?
Whatever lofty principles might have motivated his revelations to Manning of UNC corruption, having occurred only after being bypassed for the deputy leadership of that party, Maharaj will never escape his share of responsibility for the blood drenched disaster to which, driven by frustrated ambition, he has reduced a once safe, happy and progressive society.
Despite sterling attempts to remedy some of the results of his treachery, how can he be viewed save as an over ambitious neemakharam?
While Ramesh will never again enjoy the public trust, his original political patron, leader and eventually, protagonist and principal victim, Basdeo Panday, despite heading the most equitable and effective political administration to date, has as leader of the opposition, via a toxic combination of commission, omission and unfortunate public utterances, fared even worse.
As a result, as obvious as it is that a divided opposition will never bloodlessly remove the Manning PNM, both Panday and Ramesh are now perceived as the biggest obstructions to any hope of that opposition unity, a reality which even Jack Warner, Ramesh's one time partner in demanding long postponed UNC leadership elections, cannot any longer ignore.
Ramesh made this impossible by revealing his true agenda.
He broke ranks with Warner to contest, along with his nemesis and and now ally, Panday, against Kamla Persad Bissessar's popular bid for leadership of the UNC, a position from which only she can bring unity to an opposition long fractured by Basdeo Panday.
What, therefore, can either Panday, after admitting that he is no longer politically attractive, or neemakharam Maharaj, possibly hope to achieve, save keeping Manning in power, until he is removed in a blood bath?
Surely T&T and especially the sons and daughters of sugar deserve better. As typified by MF Rahaman's resolute defence and support for Panday and letters to the editor lauding Ramesh's achievements, in and out of power, none should dismiss either as being without significant support south of the Caroni bridge, perhaps support enough to deny Kamla leadership of the UNC.
In such an event, what will be the consequences?
None but misguided sons and daughters of sugar will ever support the bid of either of the forenamed for political supremacy in T&T and the harsh reality is that central Trinidad simply never possessed votes enough to alter the existing political equation.
As a result, therefore, while no outsider can interfere in the internal elections of the UNC let it be clearly recognised that the options are now obvious.
To whit, Kamla Persad Bissessar and opposition unity or PNM power and inevitable bloody disaster.
That decision fellow citizens North of the Caroni belongs south of it. Pray that on the 24th Jan '10 that the sons and daughters of sugar will prove less biased than were you on 24/12/01 and better sense will prevail.
Only thus will the nation will be preserved.
(T.G. Mendes is a Barbados-based political commentator.)
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