I am very con­cerned about the en­tire screen­ing process of the PNM.

At first glance it ap­pears as noth­ing more than a big farce.

Even re­ject­ed can­di­date Dr Amery Browne ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment of the loop holes in the sys­tem.

Let us ex­am­ine the sys­tem. First­ly, par­ty groups must nom­i­nate you and vote for your se­lec­tion.

Who formed these par­ty groups? How is one se­lect­ed for these groups? What cri­te­ria are used for the se­lec­tion?

Why does the po­lit­i­cal leader still have the pow­er to ve­to the par­ty group se­lec­tion? Then what is the pur­pose of hav­ing par­ty groups when they have no pow­er?

The ul­ti­mate pow­er rests in the hands of the po­lit­i­cal leader. If Dr Row­ley wants a can­di­date he gets se­lect­ed.

It begs the ques­tion: Didn't the PNM have one man one vote elec­tions re­cent­ly?

Well, if the par­ty is so de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, where the pow­er is of the peo­ple by the peo­ple and for the peo­ple, then why are the par­ty groups nom­i­nees like Dr Amery Browne and Ms Ali­cia Hospedales re­ject­ed af­ter re­ceiv­ing groundswell of sup­port from the peo­ple in their com­mu­ni­ty?

I am re­mind­ed of the words of for­mer PM Patrick Man­ning in de­scrib­ing Dr Row­ley. He wants his own way and when he doesn't get it he's like a rag­ging bull.

Do we want that bull to be un­leashed on­to the peo­ple of this coun­try? No.

Dr Row­ley, please ex­plain to the un­de­cid­ed vot­ers why the PNM is not as de­mo­c­ra­t­ic as it pro­fess­es to be. It's noth­ing more than a farce like every­thing else in this ba­nana re­pub­lic.

Now they ex­pect un­de­cid­ed vot­ers to vote for them be­cause he has a new vi­sion for Trinidad and To­ba­go.Yeah right.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is no dif­fer­ent.

Any rea­son­able per­son would see that the UNC is not legal­ly con­sti­tut­ed.

They have not had a par­ty in­ter­nal elec­tion since 2010.

What is wrong with pol­i­tics in this coun­try?

The irony is we are liv­ing in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try yet there is ram­pant au­thor­i­tar­i­an­ism.

Both po­lit­i­cal par­ties are not de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in their struc­ture and op­er­a­tion. They are rigid despot­ic sys­tems char­ac­terised by third world pol­i­tics. It's laugh­able.

Dr Row­ley and the PM need to put their hous­es in or­der and give us a sem­blance of what de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions are sup­posed to be and not what we present­ly have as po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Give me a break!

John Jes­samy

Fyz­abad