Yvonne Webb

Selvon "Mis­tah Shak" Noel, who placed third in this year's Na­tion­al Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, is now call­ing for an over­haul of the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans' Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) judg­ing sys­tem.He made the call yes­ter­day af­ter say­ing he was told a Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cial in­di­cat­ed he was in front fol­low­ing Sun­day's Di­manche Gras show at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, but even­tu­al­ly end­ed up third, be­hind Rod­er­ick "Chucky" Gor­don and Kurt Allen, af­ter the re­sults were doc­tored.

In an e-mail sent to undis­closed re­cip­i­ents yes­ter­day, the Siparia bard said the NCC of­fi­cial told one of his friends: "D judges orig­i­nal scores re­al­ly had yuh pard­ner Mis­tah Shak win­ning de monarch & Kurt 2nd!"The e-mail went on to claim that the NCC of­fi­cial said the fact that Gor­don's "step­moth­er" was on the judg­ing pan­el swayed the re­sults in his favour.

Noel sang Bois, one of the more pop­u­lar songs in the semi­fi­nal and fi­nal, and Crime Round D Clock, while Gor­don sang Weh Yuh Think and Wed­ding of De Cen­tu­ry be­fore an ap­pre­cia­tive crowd on Sun­day.How­ev­er, the re­sult was still be­ing de­bat­ed on the ra­dio air­waves and across so­cial net­works yes­ter­day, al­though there was still a di­vi­sion on whether the re­sults were just.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Noel said he was not go­ing to de­mand to see the score­sheets as oth­ers in the past have done, but said he was stand­ing by his claims."As far as I am con­cerned, my­self and all ca­lyp­so­ni­ans and any­body con­cerned about ca­lyp­so and cul­ture, we need to do some­thing about the trans­paren­cy of ca­lyp­so judg­ing," an up­set Noel said."They have done noth­ing to me per­son­al­ly, but every­body with a con­science, a brain and an un­der­stand­ing could see what re­al­ly went on Sun­day."

Time for trans­paren­cy

How­ev­er, he called for ma­jor changes to bring about trans­paren­cy in the judg­ing process.In the first in­stance, he wants the judges to pro­duce the scores im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter ca­lyp­so­ni­ans per­form, as they do for ath­letes in the ma­jor events like the Olympics."As soon as one singer sings and moves on, all the scores from all the judges should go up on a huge screen so every­body can see it," he said.

"In this way, there can be no tam­per­ing with the scores af­ter the fact. For peo­ple who want to do their own judg­ing at home, they can be more cer­tain of the trans­paren­cy and keep bet­ter tabs on what is hap­pen­ing."The sec­ond pro­pos­al is for ca­lyp­so­ni­ans no longer com­pet­ing to be part of the process. Say­ing he gave the claims va­lid­i­ty be­cause he had heard of ma­nip­u­la­tion of re­sults in com­pe­ti­tions be­fore, Noel said, "There is no rea­son why you should take up­wards of 45 min­utes to an hour and a half to tab­u­late re­sults.

"If the ca­lyp­son­ian is giv­en a score as soon as they per­form, it is a sim­ple case of cal­cu­lat­ing num­bers. I don't see what should take so long, un­less you leave right think­ing peo­ple to think you cook­ing the books."He said un­til such time as ma­jor changes are made to the judg­ing process there would be no in­tegri­ty in the judg­ing of ca­lyp­so."Ca­lyp­so has to have the bel­ly and the for­ti­tude to take such a coura­geous step and stop keep­ing the judg­ing of ca­lyp­so in this cloud of se­cre­cy."

TU­CO/NCC de­ny claim

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse yes­ter­day, TU­CO pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo "Broth­er Re­sis­tance" Masim­ba de­scribed the com­ments as un­for­tu­nate.Say­ing he knew Noel and had ut­most re­spect for him, Masim­ba said, "It is un­for­tu­nate a com­peti­tor could make such al­le­ga­tions and I am a lit­tle em­bar­rassed by the state­ments."He al­so de­nied that the NCC had any in­volve­ment in the judg­ing of the com­pe­ti­tion."It is a TU­CO run com­pe­ti­tion," he said

NCC chair­man Al­li­son De­mas al­so de­nied any in­volve­ment of her or­gan­i­sa­tion in the process."As chair­man of NCC, I have no in­volve­ment in the judg­ing process. I don't know who is the of­fi­cial be­ing re­ferred to. I sug­gest you speak to TU­CO, who is re­spon­si­ble for the se­lec­tion of the judges and the judg­ing of the Ca­lyp­so Monarch Com­pe­ti­tion."