Pao­lo Ker­na­han

Ri­i­ight! The rea­son the PNM lost the elec­tion in 1995 is be­cause, af­ter eight peo­ple sat in a room with the Prime Min­is­ter and de­cid­ed on the date, some turn­coat leaked it to the UNC. The up­shot of that was that the PNM did not know that the UNC knew and this is why the elec­tion was lost... And peo­ple ac­cuse Ish­mael Samad of be­ing nuts?

If he re­al­ly want­ed the el­e­ment of sur­prise to work in his favour, per­haps he should have called the elec­tion dur­ing the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions! I will ad­mit that I was one of those who thought it im­pos­si­ble that light­ning could strike twice, that the Prime Min­is­ter could bounce his head twice.

I firm­ly be­lieved that notwith­stand­ing the fact that cir­cum­stances for the rul­ing par­ty would on­ly have got­ten worse; that his rep­u­ta­tion would have been fur­ther un­der­mined be­yond sal­vage, the very same at­tri­tion of time could have test­ed an untest­ed Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. The pas­sage of time could have fo­ment­ed dis­sent in this ten­u­ous union be­tween the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and the UNC. Watch­ing Kam­la and Dooks at that news con­fer­ence was like at­tend­ing a wed­ding at which the bride is al­ready six months com­mit­ted. It has been said by many com­men­ta­tors that the Prime Min­is­ter was out of op­tions be­cause, for all in­tents and pur­pos­es, he was now a lame duck in of­fice.

From a leg­isla­tive stand­point this cer­tain­ly is not the case, so the on­ly the­o­ry that could hold any wa­ter is that he was fac­ing such re­volt from with­in the Cab­i­net and the par­ty that the on­ly per­son he could in­struct is his wife. There is no doubt that this elec­tion in large part is mere­ly a ref­er­en­dum on Patrick Man­ning's lead­er­ship. It is an in­ter­est­ing de­vel­op­ment giv­en that on­ly some weeks ago the Prime Min­is­ter was boast­ing that the kind of "in­dis­ci­pline" (read democ­ra­cy) that has shak­en the UNC to the core can­not ex­ist in the PNM! The fact that the Prime Min­is­ter al­lud­ed to a Ju­das in the ranks which cost them gov­ern­ment in 1995, is an open ad­mis­sion that per­haps his iron fist is con­sid­er­ably cor­rod­ed.

Sure, Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Patrick Man­ning have been spar­ring for years. It just nev­er dawned on Mr Man­ning that Dr Row­ley's kung-fu was far su­pe­ri­or to his. It was the very meek and per­son­able Pen­ne­lope Beck­les who was over­looked as a re­al con­tender by every­one else ex­cept the Prime Min­is­ter. Con­sid­er this folks: Row­ley, who has gar­nered the re­spect of right think­ing cit­i­zens for pre­sent­ing as an im­mov­able ob­ject to the metas­ta­sis­ing scourge of cor­rup­tion, has one big prob­lem. The PNM mem­ber­ship, I un­der­stand, would nev­er ac­cept him as po­lit­i­cal leader be­cause he would be too di­vi­sive an el­e­ment in the par­ty; diehard Man­ning sup­port­ers just would not have it. There is a name, how­ev­er, that has been cir­cu­lat­ing as a uni­ver­sal­ly ac­cept­able heiress to the throne. That's right, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les! This could ex­plain why Mr Man­ning was of­fer­ing her a diplo­mat­ic post­ing to East­er Is­land.

Now that the screen­ing process has be­gun, the cracks that the Prime Min­is­ter said were nev­er there are be­gin­ning to show. He was caught in an un­truth this past week when he told the me­dia that he spoke with Mrs Beck­les-Robin­son, who ex­plained to him that be­cause of "do­mes­tic com­mit­ments" she would not be able to ac­cept his of­fer. Well dear Pen­ne­lope was on the ra­dio the very next day mak­ing it very clear that the is­sue of "do­mes­tic com­mit­ments" nev­er arose and that the fo­cus was on a meet­ing she held with her con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. In oth­er words, she was not turn­ing down the of­fer be­cause of fam­i­ly, but be­cause her work is with Ari­ma. Mr Man­ning must be mut­ter­ing to him­self, "I knew I should have pushed for cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment at par­ty meet­ings! When dese fools get to think­ing, sto­ries does clash!" An­oth­er up­start who ought to know his place has been "of­fered" a de­mo­tion. An­tho­ny Roberts, who is now per­sona non gra­ta in Mr Man­ning's eyes, is the first per­son in record­ed his­to­ry to be of­fered a de­mo­tion.

Mr Roberts, who was found un­suit­able by the screen­ing com­mit­tee for elec­toral pol­i­tics, was of­fered the job of chair­man of the San Juan Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, one which he held pri­or to en­ter­ing pol­i­tics in earnest. How does the PNM pro­pose to con­front the cav­al­cade of scan­dals that has so in­censed the so­ci­ety? Thus far the Bible is the pri­ma­ry text de­ployed on the cam­paign trail. When you re­lin­quish all con­trol in your life to the Lord, I have to say that does not in­spire a tremen­dous amount of con­fi­dence. Make no mis­take, this will be a bat­tle royale, the PNM fat-a-- brigade will be out in full force. Fear of the In­di­an will be in­voked be­cause sim­ple minds must be plied with pri­mal in­stincts. Iron­i­cal­ly, one sig­nif­i­cant threat to the rul­ing par­ty is the GATE pro­gramme which Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo (chief of pi­cong) has been boast­ing about. An ed­u­cat­ed young pop­u­la­tion is anath­e­ma to the rul­ing par­ty.

The ques­tion re­mains: are these young peo­ple suf­fi­cient­ly mo­ti­vat­ed to vote based on their analy­sis of the is­sues? If Face­book, though no sci­en­tif­ic poll, is any­thing to go, by we are slow­ly emerg­ing from the zom­bie na­tion of vot­ers. It is in­ter­est­ing to note that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty had the temer­i­ty to tell the Prime Min­is­ter, in his pres­ence, "yeah yeah yeah, just call the elec­tion and let's get on with it."

Sure, all of us laughed as Ish­mael Samad near­ly crushed his own nads with a sledge ham­mer twice his weight. He ain't no Per­cy Vil­lafana, but he was suf­fi­cient­ly moved to make his state­ment on is­sues of cor­rup­tion. There will be many oth­ers who may not make that nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion to such crazed an­tics, but at the very least they could be in­spired to vote when they haven't be­fore.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­cent­ly told a gag­gle of re­porters, "In­deed, my dear friends, the way to vic­to­ry is be­com­ing clear­er, you will be sur­prised!" I doubt very much that this is a crazy-like-a-fox sce­nario, but on his lat­est re­mark, it is the on­ly time I have ever found my­self in agree­ment with him...I would be very sur­prised.