Guest commentary: Political Incest... (Ganging Up Time)

Reproduced unedited from the blog: Plainly talking

What is David Abdullah's role in the politics? Or, more importantly, what does he see his role as? 

Was his attempt at 'gutting' the Congress of the People (COP) in his now infamous 'meeting of citizens' in Gran Couva (surprisingly made up of predominantly members of the COP) designed to deliver those 'citizens' to the People's National Movement (PNM) under the continuous ruse of a 'Round Table' on national issues? 

Or is it that even the COP's members believe that their party is so dead that it is now open season for others to poach its members? And why would present and former members of the executive of that party (the COP) agree to meet with the political leadership of another party? 

Is it that they see themselves politically as one of the wandering tribes of Israel, always looking for the Promise Land but clueless as to how to get there on their own? 

And what of the irresponsibility and contempt shown to their membership by their attendance or the lack of any real leadership or direction to rescue their party from its own failed leadership? 

All of that is their own internal fight to fight, but what is the point to note though, is that every single time this party of 'integrity' and 'morality in public affairs' gets an opportunity to demonstrate those same principles they flub their lines, strange, isn't it?

But to get us back on point I have to ask, if he (Abdullah) is correct in his assertion that all we got in 2010 was exchange then, as he was part of the mechanism that delivered that exchange, why isn't he now trying to go forward in a new direction? 

Why is he working so hard to get us to re-exchange again? 

Something is not adding up and it appears that a concerted 'ganging up' against the United National Congress (UNC) is taking place by the very same people who were ganging up against the PNM not that long ago and one has to wonder at the incredible lack of vision it takes to even contemplate such a thing. 

Surely the replacement of a failed government by a government equally failing cannot be any justification to go back to the original failure, especially if one wants to fling words like exchange about, can it? 

And what of the people? What are they to make of all of this, the continued marginalization of their choices? Are they to continue to settle for 'one item from Column A and one item for Column B as their only political options?

What David Abdullah exposed in Gran Couva is not only the weakness inherent in the structure of these 'new' political aspirants but worse, the fear being openly displayed by the People's National Movement (by their continued presence on the MSJ's campaign) of their chief rival and a public admission that they may no longer be enough to fight the United National Congress on their own. 

And if that is not a clear indication of the failure of Dr. Keith Rowley's leadership to unite and repurpose his party I don't know what else is, because if the UNC is as widely despised and mistrusted as they say then surely a route similar to Tobago should be on the cards, shouldn't it? But again, that is another party's internal issues to sort out.

One is bound to ask though, if all of this is as a result of the players involved in this new budding partnership coalition - the 'Round Table,' having realized by their inability to pull crowds for their public meetings that it spells out a bad omen, that the electorate STILL has not begun to warm up to the idea of the PNM as an option again and worse, that the addition of the labor driven MSJ and former UNC Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj is having no effect? 

Could it be that simple? 

That the people themselves are saying quite clearly by their lack of interest in all of these shenanigans that they are tired of political games where leadership is concerned? 

If that is the case then David Abdullah might just wake up the morning after election to find that for all the calculation, conniving and congealing that what the people wanted was something different, something honest, with clear vision and new ideas? 

If that turns out to be the case then he might have been misreading his role in the politics all along and possibly might have been sitting at the Wrong Table after all.

Phillip Edward Alexander