Clevon Raphael

?New­ly-elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is un­der no il­lu­sion that the road to the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fi­cial res­i­dence is an easy one. As such, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Siparia MP, re­mains fo­cused on tak­ing her UNC to pow­er in the next gen­er­al elec­tion, when­ev­er it is called.

Q: Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how are you cop­ing with "Kam­la­ma­nia"?

A: (Smil­ing) Peo­ple are say­ing that, but I don't feel any "Kam­la­ma­nia." Quite frankly, I con­tin­ue to work, and I am re­al­ly en­joy­ing what I am do­ing...the pur­pose, the mis­sion is there.

Your can­di­da­cy came as a bit of a sur­prise, where, af­ter your pas­sion­ate speech at Mid-Cen­tre Mall in 2007, peo­ple thought you had giv­en up the fight, even though you cau­tioned; "No woman no Cry."

(In a com­mit­tee room of the Par­lia­ment last Fri­day): I did say I wasn't go­ing to crawl on my bel­ly...I am a hu­man be­ing, and I must have felt some emo­tion...But when you get knocked down, you get up and go again. Which is what I have been do­ing. And, Clevon, there was no op­por­tu­ni­ty be­fore to de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly chal­lenge the lead­er­ship of the par­ty.

Oh! So you took your licks and just wait­ed on your time to strike back?

(A mis­chie­vous grin): Your words, Clevon, but the peo­ple were telling me to 'leave the par­ty and go join the COP,' which I was not pre­pared to do, but this was the first time I got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly chal­lenge for the lead­er­ship of the UNC.

Did you, in your wildest dreams, ever thought you would have won, and by such a wide mar­gin?

I knew we would have won. It wasn't just rhetoric...And no, I did not en­vis­age the mar­gin would have been so wide.

Your vic­to­ry has na­tion­al ap­peal and sig­nif­i­cance. Has that im­posed any men­tal bur­den on you, so far; in the con­text of peo­ple's ex­pec­ta­tions?

Phys­i­cal­ly, no, but men­tal­ly it has been chal­leng­ing. It is a tremen­dous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that it places on you, and I made it very clear I was not in the busi­ness of stay­ing in op­po­si­tion. It is not my fo­cus to be­come Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. If it hap­pens, so be it, but my fo­cus is the big­ger pic­ture...the Prime Min­is­ter.

Isn't this be­ing made a bit hard­er with­out the full sup­port of your MPs in the Low­er House?

There are dif­fer­ent views out there on that, but the ju­ry is still out on that one.

Are you con­cerned about the Ramesh fac­tor?

(Push­ing away her hair par­tial­ly block­ing her right eye). And what is the Ramesh fac­tor?

Sure­ly, you are aware of the ques­tion of trust, fol­low­ing his al­liance with then Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Patrick Man­ning, which brought down the first UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion?

The mem­ber­ship gave him some 700-plus votes out of 15, or 16,000 who vot­ed, and he was not elect­ed to the ex­ec­u­tive, but he is a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and has a role to play in that con­text. The man is a bright lawyer and....

So the ques­tion of trust does not arise with you?

I am pre­pared to give every­one the ben­e­fit of the doubt, un­til oth­er­wise proven.

Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, on this gen­der is­sue, cul­tur­al­ly, women have al­ways held to a high­er stan­dard than men. Are you un­der any un­due pres­sure to con­form to that rather out­dat­ed con­cept?

Peo­ple call that dou­ble stan­dards, but once you are in pub­lic life you are sub­ject to in­tense scruti­ny, and as you progress, that scruti­ny is al­so go­ing to progress. (Chuck­ling) I keep say­ing my hands are clean (palms out­stretched and raised), my heart is (right hand on left chest), and I am fo­cused.

This ques­tion of a woman hav­ing to be­have like a man to get on top of her field and stay there. Does that both­er you?

That is what some peo­ple are say­ing, but I don't be­lieve that. Look at a woman like Di­ana Ma­habir-Wy­att; she has reached very far, and I have nev­er seen her act­ing like a man. Hazel Browne, an­oth­er strong woman. I don't think I have done it ei­ther, but as a woman, I think you bring ad­di­tion­al skills in­to ?the lead­er­ship mix...the ma­ter­nal in­stincts. We are more for­giv­ing, more tol­er­ant, and we al­ways strive for har­mo­ny rather than dishar­mo­ny.

Is that the rea­son why you are not push­ing hard­er, or at all, for all the UNC MPs to sup­port your lead­er­ship?

(Philo­soph­i­cal­ly and with a deep breath): Every­thing in the full­ness of time; it will hap­pen. What is the hur­ry?...What dif­fer­ence does it make if it is to­day or to­mor­row?

In spite of your brava­do and up­beat talk, do you re­al­ly think the road to the PM's of­fi­cial res­i­dence is an easy one?

No. It will be very chal­leng­ing, but it's not an im­pos­si­ble jour­ney. It can hap­pen, but we have to work hard. And why should the PNM be a walkover? Why should they be? It's about pow­er; elec­tion is about gov­er­nance is­sues, and I don't ex­pect them to be soft, nei­ther should they ex­pect me to be soft on them. We will be in a cam­paign, and it would be about bring­ing back good gov­er­nance to this coun­try which can­not be found in this cur­rent PNM regime.

The UNC can­not win a gen­er­al elec­tion on its own; what is the po­si­tion with re­spect to Con­gress of the Peo­ple?

I am of the firm view that the UNC, as it was con­fig­ured pri­or to Sun­day, could not win an elec­tion on its own, and I am still of the view that we have a lot of work to do, reach­ing out to every­one, all the stake hold­ers in the coun­try to have a voice in bring­ing back our beloved coun­try to a place of love, peace and har­mo­ny.

Do you think that, be­cause of his re­luc­tance to do what is ex­pect­ed of him, Mr Pan­day is demon­strat­ing his com­mit­ment to the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy?

Re­al­ly! You would have to ask him that ques­tion.

The po­lit­i­cal pun­dits are al­so say­ing the re­sults showed that sup­port­ers of the UNC showed ma­tu­ri­ty by vot­ing to the ex­ec­u­tive Afro-Tri­nis, like Jack Warn­er and Dr Daphne Phillips?

Yes. Tremen­dous ma­tu­ri­ty by se­lect­ing peo­ple who are ca­pa­ble of do­ing the job, a very wel­come de­vel­op­ment in the pro­gres­sion on the par­ty. In­deed, it re­flects my own view of how we should live in this coun­try; where every creed and race have an equal place, as our na­tion­al an­them proud­ly says.

Fi­nal­ly, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in the event that you take your par­ty in­to gov­ern­ment, what would be your pri­or­i­ty?

Crime, Clevon...That is our No 1 con­cern. We would use tal­ent wher­ev­er we can get it, lo­cal­ly and abroad. We have to get the crim­i­nals on the run, oth­er­wise we would con­tin­ue be liv­ing in a state of per­pet­u­al fear, and as a na­tion we can­not give them the up­per hand on us.