It must be noted that Basdeo Panday has worked assiduously to achieve the unenviable legal and political disgrace into which he has placed himself. He has fouled his own nest repeatedly since unnecessarily demitting office as undefeated incumbent immediately after the results of 10/12/01.
Despite the mud hurled at him by an unfairly and illegitimately elevated Manning PNM since that betrayal of the majority vote, had Panday not revelled in silent bitterness, acrimony and betrayal, and had instead traded charge for charge, neither Ramjack, Kamjack, Dookeran nor any other would or could have presumed to rival his unquestioned leadership of all opposition to an inept and corrupt Manning PNM and the electorate would, if only as the lesser of 2 evils, perforce have had no alternative to returning a unified opposition, led by him, back to power in '07.
Did this once illustrious PM have no PR, or did he simply ignore it since 24/12/01?
Much has been made of Panday's recalcitrance as justification for the collapse of "One Love" in '87.
Panday's first egregious political error was his failure to permit PM Robinson's version of what fractured that victorious coalition to go unchallenged in public.
Had he publicised a ULF version of those tragic events he just may have forced a return to the electorate. That course of action might, at the very least, have deprived Bakr and the nation of opportunity for his bloody and destructive misadventure of 27/7/90; not to mention the fact that Panday could not have been publicly reviled as the "spoiler" of "One Love".
Similarly, after failing to force President Robinson in '01 to return to the electorate, by simply "staying put", Panday again failed miserably to offer any answer to the self justifying allegations and persecution that he and his colleagues suffered in silence throughout '02 and beyond at the hands of an insecure and desperate Manning PNM.
Not even the blatant intimidation of UNC support in sensitive marginals at the hands of the Muslimeen in the election of '02, like Robinson's abuse of democracy on 24/12/01, elicited more than feeble and soon forgotten UNC whimpers of protest.
True, the media was at that time rigidly stifling all but anti UNC sentiments. That was but ample justification to fulfil his threat to make the country ungovernable.
This also he failed to even attempt, even while his own ethnic constituency was target of choice for depredation by Manning's criminal supporters. They, without Panday's assistance, have long made T&T ungovernable anyway! So why did he fail to act?
This begs the questions, how many of those several hundred Indos, forced by criminal anarchy to flee their homeland would not, before so doing, have supported a call from Panday to cripple the capital with their vehicles as a mark of protest, if only at their victimisation and abuse under the then "new" dispensation - and what would have been Manning and the media's reaction had Basdeo displayed honesty and the courage to take the fight to Manning and his other detractors?
The foregoing are of course all "might have beens".
What "is", however, is a UNC which, despite new and dynamic leadership, is like the Panday version, destined to perpetual opposition if current trends are maintained. Panday and his sycophants must be immediately sidelined and effectively neutralised.
Of more immediate import, however, unless, like "Caesar's wife" the UNC can be perceived as totally innocent of any attempt to undermine either Dookeran or his party via the poaching of it's membership, the tempting mirage of a failed PNM swept away by a unified opposition will remain just that.
This appears likely when well known COP members, however silent since electoral defeat in '07, "return to the UNC fold" rather than first bridging the gap twixt the parties, or cite "life membership" as justification for accepting UNC Senatorial appointment, without apparently the courtesy to Dookeran of a prior "by your leave"!
Kamla, though riding the crest of a popular wave must guard against being carried away. She need recall that it was not her party, nor Jacks's dollars, responsible for confirmation of Ramesh's allegations of expensive nepotism and corruption by Calder Hart and family.
That was the result of hard work by lawyers and others, all loyal members of Dookeran's very much more ethnically representative COP, without whose efforts Hart might never have found it necessary to resign!
I await her acknowledgement and fulsome credit to the Dookeran COP for their hard work and initiative. The harsh reality, whether she yet realises it or not, is the fact that despite her wave of nation wide popularity, we are a fickle society, afflicted with notoriously short memories.
Without attracting Dookeran, COP, Cadiz, Alvarez and every other politician opposed to the PNM, to her banner, she is unlikely to become the next and first PM of her sex in T&T.
North Trinidad is simply, after Panday, not yet ready for another Indocentric Government.
Merely a few words to the wise. Cry the beloved country!
TG Mendes | via email
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