The Manicou Report

Captain, Your Ship is Sinking

Captain Gary Griffith’s boat has sprung a leak. Actually, his letter leaked. Captain Gary Griffith left me speechless a couple days ago. A lot of you might know that COP member Captain Gary Griffith’s name has been in the news a lot recently, but what happened two days ago may shock you.

Just to update you on the story so far. Gary Griffith, in a letter leaked to the press, criticized COP Political Leader Winston Dookeran for his leadership style. Then my boy Gary Griffith instead of choosing not to comment on the letter, takes a sledge hammer to the leak and decides, “Oh yeah, I’ll grant the Express an interview“. What a leak! Said Mr. Griffith:

Winston Dookeran has become a law unto himself.

“Our political leader was selected rather than elected and we need to have some electoral process to have the full support of the 148,000. I don’t think we can get an extra vote with Winston Dookeran as the political leader.”

Dookeran, while not responding specifically to Gary Griffith’s comments, said,

“…We are proceeding very well and there are lots of people who are working and working at all levels, from the bottom level to the top level of the COP all over the country.

“We are working to keep that alive and I am doing my part to ensure that happens,”

To which Gary Griffith graciously replied,

“For him to say that we are moving forward and everything is working well, that is a figment of his imagination.”

It’s quite a coincidence that the letter leaked just as Gary Griffith is about to team up with Jack Warner to create a anti-crime plan for Chaguanas West. Could this be the same Gary Griffith who not too long ago was touting the greatness of Winston Dookeran?

With that being as bad as it Captain Gary Griffith made it infinitely worse when he called Anil Chris and Sprang on the Powerdive as the topic was being discussed so as to to lambaste Anil Roberts for discussing the topic on air. The man was in full bacchanal mode:

“Yuh loudmouth, hypocrite. I like how yuh doing the same thing yuh criticize me for. You is the reason why we loss the election. Yuh want to hang up on me? Go ahead, yuh duck and run just like yuh leader!”

Gasp! First of all it wasn’t Anil Roberts who was parading before the media. It was Gary Griffith. Now that Gary Griffith’s letter, and Gary Griffith himself is in the public spotlight, the story is legitimate - something which Gary Griffith seems unable to understand.

Griffith’s accusations are even more interesting considering the report that before last Sunday (where he apologised for the leak and his subsequent comments), he hadn’t been to a COP executive meeting since November 5th or thereabouts. Yet even more interesting was what Gary Griffith said during his apology, “The growing pains which were presently being experienced by the party was a natural aspect in the life of a political party. The party would deal with these growing pains in a professional manner“. Interesting.

The COP issued a press release stating that Mr. Griffith does not speak on behalf of the Congress of the People and that all his appearances in the media haven’t been sanctioned by the party. It’s interesting therefore that this is the very same loose cannon who has accused Mr. Dookeran of becoming a party onto himself. Awkward.

I am sure the COP will weather this as well as the (perhaps) the imminent departure of Mr. Griffith.

Posted in COP, Politics | 16 Comments »

It’s Finally Over

Thank God for we PNM yes gyul. Dem Indian and dem talking too much schupidness. - My aunt to my mother.

From her statement some of you might guess that my aunt is some kind of under-educated, swearing, rum-drinking bacchanalist. She is none of these things. My aunt is an educated woman who left her Canadian university one dissertation short of a PhD. She is also a devoutly religious woman.

My point in highlighting this is not to condemn my aunt (although I do condemn her statements), I want to ask you where are we going? When I sit back and look at it all, it’s disheartening. My aunt is by no means an isolated case either in my extended family or the whole of Trinidad and Tobago for that matter. I have an uncle even more educated than his sister there who is guilty of saying things that are just as negative. And I am sure that many of you have been put off by things your near and dear family members have said - things you might not have expected from them. I did not expect this from her after all. A lot of us have come to expect statements like this from wider society, but it’s always more disheartening to hear this coming from our own.

Part of me thinks that we are doomed as a society if we continue to vote on race and religion the way we did on November 5th. I scoff at the people who tell me that the majority of people voted on issues. The way I see it is that the majority people to this day still vote for a party based on skin colour and hair texture.

That having been said, I am proud to have made up that 148,000 that voted for the COP. I would not have voted had it not been for the them and I feel the same is true for many others. Despite what Mr. Panday says, the COP did no “wrong” to the country. We who voted for them did not believe in either the UNC or the PNM. I don’t subscribe to the thought that we should have voted for the UNC-A in order to not “split the vote”. I don’t understand the UNC-A’s notion that if you’ve voted for the UNC in the past, votes are by default theirs and you shouldn’t ever vote for anyone else. Votes are earned on a voter by voter basis and in the minds of COP voters, the UNC-A did not earn their votes. We did what we did, not because it was popular, but because it was right. I would do it all over again if I had to because sometimes you have to stand up for what you believe in regardless of the outcome if only to sleep well at night.

So what we go do people?

P.S. - Contrary to what my aunt thinks, my mother voted COP as did the rest of my immediate family.

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | 26 Comments »

My Friend Ramesh

First of all. To all the UNC supporters out there. Is this man Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj really what you want? Ramesh who you perceive to have brought down the UNC government the last time and then has the audacity to say that that’s all a lie. So why did he get thrown out of the party? But that’s beside my point. I figure if people are still going to vote for the UNC after that then they’ve left no room for reason.

My concern is why would Patrick Manning come out and say that at this juncture. Manning can’t possibly think that he stands to benefit directly from his statement. He’s most likely thinking (and hoping) that:

1. The COP has put a negligible dent into the following of the UNC.
2. The number of undecided voters coming over to the COP is minuscule and at the very least, unproven.
3. The UNC thus still poses a big enough threat to grab power from the PNM.
4. He needs to level the playing field a little between the UNC and the COP.

The only thing Mr. Manning didn’t say was, “Remember what Ramesh do allyuh, vote COP!” Mr. Manning must think that in order for him to win this war, he must help the COP win the battle between themselves and the UNC.

That’s the only thing I can think of. Anyone else have a theory?

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | 3 Comments »

No Love For The Yout’ Dem

I read today that both the UNC Alliance and the People’s National Movement blanked the Youth Forum hosted on Wednesday at the Normandie Hotel. They blanked it big time too. Neither of the aforementioned parties sent a single representative to the forum to hear the concerns of the youth.

The Congress of the People showed up however sending not just a representative, but its political leader Winston Dookeran. The members of the forum took the opportunity to hand over their manifesto to Mr. Dookeran where it detailed the top ten issues that were of concern to the youth which were: crime, employment, health, education, abuse, housing, family life, equal opportunity, corruption and abuse of power. The manifesto was the product of a survey conducted during a Youth Voter Awareness Campaign organized by the Network of NGOs for the Advancement of Women from August 6 to August 11, 2007.

Now it’s bad enough that neither the UNC-A or the PNM attended, but something stuck me as very odd this morning. Just yesterday this ad appeared in the Express:

Advertisement for UNC’s Youth Vibes Rally

So let’s get this straight. The UNC-A would rather promote a passa passa fete than to meet with the youth of the nation to discuss real issues?

Get your tickets now, folks for the Youth Vibes Rally featuring man like Richie Spice, man like King David, man like Gitta Dan.

Isn’t there something terribly wrong with this picture?

I cringe when I think of the meeting where this decision was made. Yeah, why don’t we hold a “Youth Vibes Rally” with a lot of reggae start. I hear the kids like that kind of thing”. Sheesh.

Part of me wants to believe that it was merely an oversight, but I refuse to think that the youth of the nation can be so easily forgotten. Notice on that same flier there is no mention of issues or speakers. It is all out fete.

Is that their perception of the youth? Partiers and limers who have no interest in issues? My word!

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, Social Issues, UNC | 12 Comments »

A Reply To JohnBoy

You know, most times when I get a comment that I feel is unwarranted, I try to sleep on it before I respond. The reason I wait is that I want to avoid the usual first reaction denouncing the criticizer. The next day I’m usually able to respectfully disagree with my accuser and/or accept all accusation as truth. Many times I find that I misread the comment or misconstrued the tone of the criticism. So a lot of the time I am glad I chose to wait till the next day before replying.

A couple days ago I get the following comments from JohnBoy - a semi-frequent commenter on my blog.

Yea Mani, ya know I is a man following your blog here for de longest. I use it to get a pulse of TnT. After I just make a trod down to de rock, I have to say you typify what is wrong wid Trini. My ppl have no sense of basic understanding of economics or from a macro view or human social view. You complaining bout this and that and by no means is Trinidad a perfect place. My view however is that most of the problems lie with the population of Trinidad. Is Trinidadians who committing crime right? That is the first thing ppl does say how crime so bad. It bad! But who committing crime? And I never get a chance to respond to the idiot who say Panday was de best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had. Doh mean to call him an idiot but wha really get mih is that you agreed. Of course u entitled to your own opinion. Hell is your blog! But when as a supposedly educated fella make statements that support stupidity I will choose to voice my disdain in your blog if you would allow me. Basdeo Panday was de best allya say? Now I know for sure that there is pandemic of amnesia down on de rock! Basdeo Panday ya say? Mani, I cant say I expect better from u cuz I doh know ya personally, but Basdeo Panday was de best?

De talk is about creeping dictatorship. So when a leader decide he party need new blood and he decide to make changes he is a dictator right? Because he have to make decisions not everybody like. Ya mean like when Panday get rid of Ramesh who was telln him but de corruption going on in de UNC. Ya mean like dat? Thanks to tha best Prime Minister in TnT we had a splintering of the NAR, to form tha UNC and then de UNC splinter again to form COP and one name keep reappering in de middle. Well yes! De best Prime Minister. I was reading all these months but didnt feel qualified to say nutten until ah touch down on de rock and after havn done so ah seeing how one set a ppl here talkn a set assness! Ah have 1 question: Ah want anybody here tell me how many nations among the G10 offers their citizens free tertiary education? G10 is “considered” to be 10 of the world’s richest nations for anybody not in de know.

The Basdeo Panday thing I can forgive him for somewhat. Other people also seemed to misunderstand Ed’s comment so I’ll go over it briefly. Someone named John commented on my post “Indecent Proposal” saying, “Everyone knows that he is the best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had during 1995-2001.” Ed responded to that saying, “Have to agree with John. Panday was definitely Trinidad’s best Prime Minister between 1995 and 2001.” I have to admit that I was a little puzzled by that statement coming from Ed seeing that he’s the same person who keeps asking why Bas is not in jail. Then I realized that Ed had picked up on the silliness of the statement itself. Bas was the “best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had during 1995-2001″ because he was the only PM during that period. I remarked to Ed later in that post that I got his joke and in my post “A Letter to John” I said this:”Ed agreed with you when you said that Panday was the best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had during 1995-2001. Let me say that I agree with you too. No other Trinidadian Prime Minister at that time could compete with him. It was almost like no one else existed.

Both Ed and I are saying that Basdeo Panday was the best Prime Minister during 1995-2001 in the same way that a man who runs a race all by himself can call himself first. I think I’ve explained this enough. I hope when you see how obvious this was and how mistaken you were, you will feel just a little silly. Next time my brother, please read the post and comments in it’s entirety then do what I do, take a chill pill and then read it again. Don’t just go off and people they talking assness. Just as you say you’ve been reading for a long time and you should know my feelings about Basdeo Panday. But anyway that is not what I came here to discuss. If daiz all I wanted to talk I woulda handle that in the comments.

Secondly you say that I typify what is wrong with Trinidad. Me, brother? If I do typify what is wrong with the average Trinidadian, in what way? Because I’m complaining? It’s my right to complain. A few months ago you remarked that instead of complaining, I should give suggestion. I will tell you now what I told you back then. If the government can’t do the work, I “suggest” they leave. They’re the ones who told us they had all the answers to our problems. Now it’s apparent that this is not so. In my humble opinion, they should lef the wuk to people who could manage. Yes is Trinis what doing the crime, but they told us they can fix it, didn’t they? Or do we live in some kind of parallel universe where politicians don’t make election promises?

Are you new here? Because this talk about a creeping dictatorship didn’t begin with the constituency screenings. This has been an issue for over a year now (as far as I am aware). The screenings fiasco, just made it more apparent. By the way, if you think that this was all about bringing in “new blood” you are incredibly mistake. Why remove all these strong outspoken people like Diane Seukeran, Ken Valley and Camille Robinson-Regis and replace them with an entire slate of back-benchers? And let me ask you this, why no poll on the Ministers? You hear more complaints about the government ministers on any given day than about MPs, and yet no Bill Johnson poll on the ministers? This year we’re going to top 1,500 murders for this 5-year period, and no one bothers to ask us, “Hey, what allyuh think about dat Martin Joseph”? New blood? Something to just me doesn’t add up.

Did I say anything was wrong with free education? I am very thankful for free education, but what does that have to do with what you’re talking about?

By the way, I’m still waiting on you to tell me what is why I “typify what is wrong wid Trini”.

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | 17 Comments »

Political Race Heating Up

This post was previously posted as a guest post on the Izatrini blog on Monday.

It was definitely a politically-charged weekend here in T&T with all three political parties (and the MND) holding their major rallies. When people say that this is going to be the mother of all elections you had better believe it.

The People’s National Movement has been the only party so far to announce a full slate of candidates while the UNC alliance has named 21 and the Congress of the People has named 38. Word from the COP is that they will unveil their last three candidates shortly - a “secret weapon” to unseat Patrick Manning at a later date and its two Tobgaonian candidates at a rally in Tobago.

Looking at that sea of orange yesterday at the Mid Center Mall, it’s plain to see that the UNC still has a tremendous amount of support. It was the largest group of people I have seen at a political gathering for this election season. It is going to be something very difficult for either the PNM or the COP to ignore. In fact, I’m sure that many a confidence took a hit yesterday upon seeing the crowd at the Mid Center Mall. How that crowd, or any crowd for that matter, translates into
votes will be the meat of the matter.

Front Page of the Sunday Guardian

Cover of the Sunday Guardian

My sister pointed this out to me. At first glance, the photos on the front page of the Guardian make Dookeran look like an angel and Manning the opposite. It helps that Dookeran is dressed in white and has two angel-wing-looking things behind him. It also helps that Patos is dressed in red. Obviously the effect was not intentional, but it still makes it all funny.

Famous Abusive Relationships in history

• Ike & Tina Turner
• Mike Tyson & Mike Tyson
• The People’s National Movement & Lavantille
• Kamla Persad Bissessar & The United National Congress

Poor Kamla. She waited and waited. Shrugged it off when people refer to
her appointment as AG as a “10 days”. She was loyal and brownnosing and all she gets is to be head of a fictional “women’s army” - because she’s a woman.

I listened to most of her speech on Sunday - the one where she was carded to speak for 10 minutes and spoke for 35 - and I have to say I was a little surprised at how she spoke out about the treatment meted out to her.

After being introduced to the sounds of, “No Woman, No Cry”, she ranted and raved and yet got no support from the other platform members, and still she waits. You know, denial isn’t a river in Africa, at some point she is going to have to admit she is “Waiting in Vain” for Panday’s love. Maybe now she will take the hint and retire to the kitchen where she could bake the old boys some pie.

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | No Comments »

ZoomInfo says I am Nirad Tewarie

Nirad Tewarie’s Zoominfo Profile

According to this ZoomInfo Web Profile, I am COP spokesman Nirad Tewarie. I noticed this morning I was getting referrals from ZoomInfo, only to find out that this was Nirad Tewarie’s website.

Zoominfo states that their profiles are generated automatically using information from the internet, but that some profiles are submitted by users. I don’t believe that this is Nirad’s work even though I have never met the guy, but I’m thinking that it’s someone’s mischief.

For the record, I am not Nirad.

Posted in COP, Politics | 7 Comments »

Comment from Gospelspy

Good comment from Gospelspy in A Letter to John:

gospelspy said…

If the COP of Winston Dookeran is the Corpse, then Red Beret must be the living dead. Something is definitely wrong in the head under the red beret, it has gone beyond loose screws, and it is outright madness. The logic under the red beret is flawed. How can one call for unity but at the same time spit the oil of vitriol on those with whom you propose to unite? Even worse, is the threat that if you don’t unite I will expose you as some sort of evil person with cocoa in the sun. So why do you want to unite with this person in the first place?

One major tragedy of the present scenario is not so much the fact that Red Beret’s political game plan makes sense to him, (one expects that he makes sense of his delusions), however it is the scattered remnant of supporters who actually applaud his illogical repertoire of hate and love in the same breadth. The majority of this remnant are East Indians who for some reason believe that they owe Red Beret wholesome gratitude for his work as a trade unionist or politician. Some may not like the way he was hounded and persecuted by The Emperor and want him to have a chance to get even. Whatever the reason, these sweet people seem unable to break from the spell of the red beret because they refuse to consider the larger picture.

This larger picture is the fact that the UNC Alliance is unattractive to the majority of those who oppose the PNM in Trinidad and Tobago, the major unattraction being Red Beret himself. Hence, because it’s popularity is zoned into the traditional “sugar cane” seats, the best that the UNC Alliance can do is form part of the opposition. They cannot win any marginal seat. It is only the COP, which has the broad based appeal across all ethnic and other divides of the society that provides the best umbrella under which to capture the government from the PNM to the benefit of all the people of our country.

This is the reason why the unity for which so many desire (including Red Beret) can only bear fruit under the banner of the COP with Winston Dookeran as leader. The irony of Red Beret is that for one who has said that his life struggle has been to unite the people of T&T, is that he can accomplish his life long goal by simply doing nothing, yes simply get out of the way and “Voila” unity. The problem with Red Beret is that the only unity he will accept is the one that he leads and he will smash up anybody who tries to take away the title of Mr. Unity from him.

Nevertheless, despite the efforts of the Red Beret, unity is happening on the ground as there is a quickening momentum of support for the COP coming from all sections of the society. What may well happen is that Red Beret’s party will be reduced to Team UNC Alliance and suffer the same ignorance by the electorate as Ramesh Maharaj’s Team Unity. Now by the way, unless Ramesh Maharaj can explain how he knew to fly his family to Grenada on the eve of the Muslimeem coup of July 1990, he will always be a man I distrust.

For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, “Winston is de man!”

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | 2 Comments »

A Letter to John

Hi, I wanted to share with you a comment I received today on my post “Indecent Proposal“. It’s from John. And by the way, all spelling, grammatical, logical, punctuation, number/letter confusion, factual and glaring errors are his. My response to John follows.

John said…

How cuould anyone sensible enough could actually vote for COP. This party has no vision and direction.That party has a set of political rejects and persons older than Panday eg. Alloy Lequay, Humphery just to name a few. Why don’t all the top ranking members of COP resigned there seats because they are there because of the UNC. When Dookeran was in the UNC , just imagine he was forming his own party,isn’t that betrayal to its highest level?They have absolutely no shame. What have Panday done to these people? Or I see, he is the bad one because he started all of them with political life after taking them from the gutter.Everyone knows that he is the best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had during 1995-2001. Just imagine with $9.oo dollars a barrel, he done so much for this country.What have this man done to deseve this sort of hate and malice by most people who are supporting COP. I will tell eveyone who is voting for COP count your vote as a waste of time because they are not going to win a single seat. I am so sorry for them.I wish them and who are supporting them GOOD LUCK in the General Elections.

John, I consider myself very sensible which is why I choose to vote for the Congress of the People, I’m sorry if you have concluded that the two are mutually exclusive. No vision and no direction - that’s a sentiment I’ve heard being bandied about before. What do you consider to be a vision? Because I have listened extensively to the COP’s Tuesday night meetings and I can say that I have heard lots of vision coming from them. And not only visions, but plans and tactics in everything from National Security to Agriculture. Seriously, did you check on that before you wrote it?

Dookeran forming his own party while he was being kicked in the teeth was betrayal? Are you trying to say that a man planning his political survival when he was he was being kicked to the ground over and over again is betrayal? Then I must have a little traitor in me also because I would have done the exact same thing.

People older than Panday are bad? OK. I agree, lets take them all on a train somewhere and exterminate them.

Dookeran was in a gutter when Panday called him? Was he really? In any case, why is it that you feel like people owe their souls to Mr. Panday despite what he does or says?

John I am sorry to say that you have been misled. Oil averaged $9 a barrel for only three months. From December 1998 - February 1999 the price of oil progressed from $8.64 to $9.86 to $9.30. In March of that year the price of oil rose to $12.05 and the yearly average for that year was $16.55. While these are not the great prices we enjoy today (thanks to the war in Iraq), it would be misleading for you to keep saying that oil was $9.00 a barrel. I wouldn’t expect you to know this however as people who tend to utter slogans, rarely check on their validity.

Why don’t all the top ranking members of COP resigned there seats because they are there because of the UNC.[sic] Well John, you see, to get to the top echelons of the UNC, you have to accomplish a certain amount of butt kissing - butt kissing isn’t easy and after you’ve done it for so many years you really don’t want to throw it all away because of conscience. So you stay and grit your teeth. And when Panday says jump, you ask “how high?”.

Ed agreed with you when you said that Panday was the best Prime Minister Trinidad ever had during 1995-2001. Let me say that I agree with you too. No other Trinidadian Prime Minister at that time could compete with him. It was almost like no one else existed.

You mentioned shame. Remember politics has a morality of its own. It’s that same lack of shame that has the UNC pleading to unite with “the Corpse” and the leader of the Corpse, the Duck. Where’s the shame in that?

Have you ever realized the level of stupidity coming out of the UNC these days? Have you? I want to sit here and walk you through it piece by piece, but I think I will be wasting my time, because if you haven’t seen it yet, you never will. Where was the sense in mistreating Mr. Dookeran and effectively kicking him out of the party? Where was the sense in electing him political leader only for the party hierarchy to appoint Kamla as Opposition Leader? You may want to label those who want to vote for the COP as insensible, but if voting for the UNC is being bright, I want to remain a dunce.

By the way bredda, the UNC is not winning this election. The only party with a chance is the COP. So who is wasting their time now?

Posted in COP, Miscellaneous, UNC | 30 Comments »

Indecent Proposal

Winston Dookeran, I call upon you once more to meet with me in the public glare to decide how we should unite the forces of the opposition and remove this dictatorial regime of the PNM. I await your answer.

I am prepared to meet at any time, in any place, I ask only one condition: that this meeting be held under the full glare of the media, the reporters, the television cameras recording every word we say to one another….No one will therefore be able to deny what he said. No more lies! The public has a right to witness such a meeting so that they may judge for themselves what are the concerns and objections of the Corpse to this question of unity.
- Basdeo Panday

I’ll tell you tonight, I give Mr. Dookeran and the Corpse 21 days….And if after 21 days they eh unite, I Jack Warner go after Dookeran. I’ll give him 21 days! Because at the end of it all, if we don’t unite, is unity or death.” - Jack Warner

I prefer the original version of this song from the 70’s when Player sang it. Back then it was called “Baby Come Back” and singer Ronn Moss was not yet portraying Ridge Forrester on the Bold and the Beautiful. The original lyrics went like this (feel free to sing along if you know the tune):

Player

Spending all my nights, all my money going out on the town
Doing anything just to get you off of my mind
But when the morning comes
I’m right back where I started again
Trying to forget you is just a waste of time

Baby come back, any kind of fool could see
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back, you can blame it all on me
I was wrong, and I just can’t live without you

All day long, wearing a mask of false bravado
Trying to keep up the smile that hides a tear
But as the sun goes down, I get that empty feeling again
How I wish to God that you were here

Baby come back, any kind of fool could see
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back, you can blame it all on me
I was wrong, and I just can’t live without you

Now that I put it all together
Give me the chance to make you see
Have you used up all the love in your heart?
Nothing left for me, ain’t there nothing left for me

Baby come back, any kind of fool could see (oh darlin’)
There was something in everything about you
Baby come back (listen baby), you can blame it all on me
I was wrong, and I just can’t live without you
I was wrong, and I just can’t live

The truth is that I don’t know what it will take for the Congress of the People to win this election. It probably depends on which poll you’re listening to. Some say that the Congress can win it alone and yet others say that they are lost without the UNC. That having been said, if the UNC and the COP do unite, what kind of unity could this be? How can the UNC call on the Congress of the people for unity and insult them in the same sentence? I think that an alliance between the UNC and the COP will be a marriage doomed from the very start.

There may be no ‘i” in “team”, but there’s definitely an “i” in “unity” and Basdeo Panday’s predicament is that he is much too aware of it. You see, the problem with Basdeo Panday is that Basdeo Panday thinks that it’s all still about Basdeo Panday, when in fact it hasn’t been about Basdeo Panday for a long time now. And being amongst his croonies hasn’t helped him let go of himself.

For me at least it has been bewildering to watch the UNC as they try to get ready for this election. No political leader, a questionable “alliance” and now calls for unity to a party that the UNC has repeatedly dismissed. Where exactly is this bus headed? Pretty soon all UNC followers are going to have to come to the realization that Mr. Panday cannot win this election — wishing so won’t make a bit of difference.

Why this call for unity now anyway? Before he was known to the UNC as Mr. Dookeran, he was “the duck”, “duck and run”. Said Mr. Panday, “He (Mr. Dookeran) is a harmless, useless duck. You ever see a duck fight? Chicken does fight. Duck doh fight.” Said Mr. Jack Warner, “Take your jahaji bundle and go, bhaio aur baino.”

Now listen to the pleading and the ultimatums that border on threats and guess who’s popular again

I have to say that even though I’m a little relieved at Mr. Dookeran’s declaration that there will be no unity between the UNC and the COP, I have to say that I’m worried, nervous and anxious all rolled into one. It’s kind of like that first time you move out of your parents’ house. You know that you and only you are responsible for your successes and failures. The Congress of the People has stepped out on its own and now more than ever before, will have itself and only itself to blame for its own successes or failures. That is a pretty big responsibility to shoulder especially when the future of the nation is at stake.

Posted in COP, PNM, Politics, UNC | 10 Comments »