?It is more a reflection of us as a nation, than it is just a reflection of the Opposition parties, that there have been such a dearth and paucity of depth, substance and serious issues on the platforms of the UNC internal elections.�
Clowns and jesters
We have grown so accustomed to having clowns and jesters in political office here in Trinidad and Tobago, that we easily accept and�just as easily swallow the drivel and tripe that they serve up to us on the national plate, and when we analyse it all, we are no better off at the end of the day. Whatever the outcome of the UNC elections, it is clear that the population in general will end up as the losers, because it is the same tired actors on the same tired old stage, spouting the same tired old lines.�So be it Kamjack or Ramday who rules the roost, at the end of the day it remains more of the same. The inevitable UNC post-internal election bloodbath will ensue, and alliances will be formed and broken and made and unmade, as they test the outer limits of the tolerance and apathy of a jaded, disinterested and disillusioned electorate.
Now, this extreme tolerance and laxity by the voting population would not matter, if we had a slew of good, viable candidates to choose from, and we could say that whoever wins it does not matter. However, when one looks at the political landscape on both sides of the divide, one is hard-pressed to find candidates who are truly meritorious and deserving of the absolute trust, confidence, and support of the population. It is as the good Book says: "All have sinned and have fallen short of the Glory of God," and their posings and posturings are merely the ungainly pantomime of mimic men playing a game of monkey see, monkey do. Take, for example, the old Bas trying to besmear and besmirch Kamla with allegations of uncontrollable insobriety, when Panday himself has been drunk on power and self-delusion for years of having tasted one too many times from the wine of astonishment, to the point where he can no longer astonish anyone, but still is capable of inflicting great disappointment on those who adore and trust him the most.
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One thing with the great Bas is that he never fails to disappoint. He always finds ways to sink to new lows, and even his rakish and off-the-cuff flippancy and sense of humour seem to have deserted him in his times of need, and he is left rasping and railing at the shackles of obsolescence, irrelevance and invalidity. There is a young new breed arising in the heartland, and to revere and deify Bas is not part of their future. They would just as quickly revile and defy him, seeing him as an anachronism and albatross around the neck of a power-seeking Opposition.
The race bogey
He has shown just how devoid and bereft of ideas he has become, that when he dug in his bag of tricks on the hustings, it was as empty as Mother Hubbard's cupboard, save and except for his old friend, the race bogey, which he threw out in desperation on to the back of Jack, hoping to make it stick, but it only backfired on Bas and a certain label stuck to him instead. The only real usefulness which Bas has had of late on the national scene, is being a good source of comic relief, with his witty one-liners and barbed retorts, and even that is deserting him now, like Partaps fleeing a sinking ship. Ramesh, for his part, has lived up to his two-face moniker and is as usual, running with the hares while hunting with the hounds.
Ramesh, we have foolish people in this nation, but we are not a nation of fools! How can anyone trust you, least of all Bas? He might literally seek to sleep with the devil, in this case to get power, but do you think he really wants to continue to live with the threat of constant fork and horn in his tail? If he does win, he will keep the Ramday alliance just long enough to stave off all legal and other challenges, and then he will be sending someone back to the political cemetery, and thence the fiery furnace from whence he came. Truly, the saddest thing about all the machinations and upheavals of this UNC internal elections and about politics in Trinidad and Tobago, in general, is that the more things change, the more they remain the same, and the population and electorate are no better off at the end of the day.