?In­di­ra Ram­per­sad

Months be­fore the Hait­ian cat­a­stro­phe struck on Jan­u­ary 12, the UNC par­ty had been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing po­lit­i­cal con­vul­sions. The tremors were felt through­out the rain­bow isle, as­sum­ing the di­men­sions of a na­tion­al up­heaval, the moth­er of all elec­tions. Through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go, the Caribbean and its di­as­po­ra, pop­u­la­tions looked on with in­ter­est at the shift­ing of three tec­ton­ic plates with fault lines run­ning from the Rien­zi epi­cen­tre to­ward Cou­va North, Siparia and Tabaquite. Po­lit­i­cal strate­gies, gen­der, race and class all con­verged in an ex­plo­sive tem­blor, a seis­mic move­ment cul­mi­nat­ing in a mas­sive earth­quake, mea­sur­ing 13.5 on the Richter scale, which rocked the UNC par­ty and rav­aged the in­cum­bent slate on that fate­ful night of Jan­u­ary 24, 2010.

Po­lit­i­cal Strate­gies

In typ­i­cal Pan­day style, the Sil­ver Fox adopt­ed an of­fen­sive strat­e­gy the minute he re­turned from Eng­land on Jan­u­ary 5, open­ly de­clar­ing war on his op­po­nents to save the par­ty. "If you see me and a li­on fight­ing, he roared, feel sor­ry for the li­on–or the li­oness." In­ter­pret­ed as vi­o­lent rhetoric de­signed to de­stroy Kam­la, his strat­e­gy was de­scribed as goon­da pol­i­tics by the Hin­du Women's Or­gan­i­sa­tion, and lat­er as cave­man pol­i­tics by his wor­thy op­po­nent, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It was a twofold strat­e­gy, which aimed, first, to den­i­grate her on the ba­sis of an al­leged weak­ness, and sec­ond, to paint her as an agent of the dread­ed COP, which want­ed to hi­jack his par­ty. Both strate­gies would back­fire; first­ly, be­cause the chut­ney posse had nev­er been averse to al­co­hol, and sec­ond­ly, be­cause they had no prob­lems with uni­ty with the COP if it could help them win a gen­er­al elec­tion with­out com­pro­mis­ing the UNC lead­er­ship. Kam­la adopt­ed a four­fold de­fen­sive strat­e­gy, first by re­fer­ring to Pan­day as a los­er who could not win a gen­er­al elec­tion (but she could); sec­ond by cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly deny­ing al­le­ga­tions of any weak­ness; third by as­sur­ing sup­port­ers that she will not "sell out the par­ty" and re­lin­quish lead­er­ship un­der any cir­cum­stance; and fourth, by in­vok­ing the gu­ru/chaala re­la­tion­ship.

Kam­la's pri­ma­ry strat­e­gy was to project pow­er­ful­ly the goal of gov­er­nance. It ac­counts for the cam­paign as­sum­ing the di­men­sions of a na­tion­al elec­tion. Adopt­ing an Oba­ma-style cam­paign with the rhetoric of change, she de­lib­er­ate­ly pre­sent­ed her­self as a dig­ni­fied stateswoman, whose ob­jec­tive con­verged with that of the elec­torate. They all want­ed the same thing–to move from op­po­si­tion in­to gov­ern­ment, and she was the on­ly one who could get them out of the op­po­si­tion rot. Through­out the cam­paign, Kam­la poignant­ly evoked the ral­ly­ing cry for prime min­is­ter­ship, as she con­sis­tent­ly fo­cused on the ob­jec­tive of tak­ing the UNC in­to gov­ern­ment, which is ex­act­ly what the chut­ney posse want­ed to hear. More­over, from the start, she did not alien­ate Pan­day–a pru­dent po­si­tion adopt­ed to gar­ner sup­port­ers from his die-hard loy­al­ists. Laud­ing him as her gu­ru, she en­sured that the ac­ri­mo­ny and ran­cour di­rect­ed against him by COP sup­port­ers in 2007 did not re­peat it­self to jeop­ar­dise her chances. The gu­ru/chaala di­choto­my res­onat­ed deaf­en­ing­ly through­out the chut­ney heart­land: "I have a weak­ness, an­nounced the de­vot­ed chaala.

Let me ad­mit, I re­al­ly do have a weak­ness...My weak­ness has been that I have sup­port­ed Mr Pan­day blind­ly for too long...Mr Pan­day, I have a weak­ness, sir. I care about you. "You helped me. You taught me. I was a stu­dent, and I learned at your feet. I learned from you as my gu­ru, and I learned well, but the time has come now–I am a stu­dent, yes–and I am ready to grad­u­ate now." The elec­tions al­so saw the forg­ing of some un­holy al­liances. Didn't some­one once say that pol­i­tics makes strange bed­fel­lows? First, Ram­jack be­came Kam­jack, with Jack open­ly en­dors­ing Kam­la. Then came al­le­ga­tions of a Ram­day al­liance, sug­gest­ing an ac­com­mo­da­tion be­tween Ramesh and Pan­day, de­signed to turn their weapons on Kam­la and not on each oth­er. Ramesh is no li­on, so he hard­ly roared, as­sum­ing a kind of mid­dle po­si­tion and keep­ing his cam­paign phys­i­cal­ly on the ground and amongst the peo­ple.

The gen­der fac­tor

Kam­la made his­to­ry as the first woman to lead a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but it is not the first time she would be mak­ing his­to­ry. She was al­so the first fe­male at­tor­ney gen­er­al and the first woman to act as Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try. Carv­ing a space for her­self in the po­lit­i­cal are­na, away from the bed­rooms, kitchens and pow­der rooms, she made it clear that she is no sub­mis­sive po­lit­i­cal du­lahin. This time, she was pre­pared to fol­low her head and not her heart, and would ad­vise sup­port­ers to do the same. Fear­less­ly, she stood up to the ma­cho boys club which threat­ened to ban­ish her to ban Bas–since it was the di­vine right of man to rule, and hence con­trol the UNC. Pan­day's al­lu­sion to Kam­la's weak­ness di­rect­ly re­ferred to al­co­holism, but could be in­ter­pret­ed as hav­ing un­der­ly­ing chau­vin­is­tic over­tones of women be­ing weak and un­fit to rule. The ral­ly­ing cry of the chut­ney posse, rum till I die and ah want meh rum in the morn­ing...and in de evening would coun­ter­act any at­tempt by the bale­ful boys club to taint her char­ac­ter.

Al­co­holism is an in­te­gral as­pect of In­di­an cul­ture. Sev­er­al of us would re­mem­ber our Ar­jee or Nani as an el­der­ly woman who toiled all day in the sug­ar cane fields un­der the blaz­ing hot sun. When drenched to the bones by the mer­ci­less, trop­i­cal rains, she would turn to the pe­tit quart to warm up her soul. In­deed, Sun­dar Popo care­ful­ly re­mind­ed us about Nana drink­ing white one and Nani drink­ing wine. But no one dare say that my Nani or Ar­jee had a weak­ness as she squat­ted at the road side im­bib­ing the prod­ucts of her labour. The ac­cu­sa­tion of a weak­ness against Kam­la is the in­her­it­ed, gen­dered and cul­tur­al vic­tim­i­sa­tion dished out by some men in lead­er­ship po­si­tions who in­sist that women are fit for deputy, but not for boss, an ex­pres­sion of their own de­mor­al­i­sa­tion via sys­tem­at­ic as­saults to their mas­culin­i­ty by the in­creas­ing ed­u­ca­tion and in­de­pen­dence of women. Now, who re­al­ly has the weak­ness for sweet­ness? Brave­ly re­sist­ing the pa­tri­ar­chal ag­gres­sion of the male-dom­i­nat­ed pol­i­tics of the day, Kam­la stood tall and proud, mount­ing a mag­nif­i­cent, strong and sober cam­paign, re­plete with rhetoric of hu­mil­i­ty, for­give­ness, uni­ty, en­gage­ment and heal­ing.

Nether ban­daged nor crawl­ing on her bel­ly, she made no apolo­gies for her gen­der. In­deed, while the two li­ons were sup­pos­ed­ly ro­manc­ing each oth­er at Rien­zi Com­plex, the li­oness ven­tured in­to the li­on's den, two Wednes­days ago, and stole the hearts of Pan­day's sup­port­ers, at the Bas­deo Pan­day pre-school in Pan­day's very home town, St Julien Vil­lage, New Grant. In­ter­est­ing­ly, while the chau­vin­ism and pa­tri­archy were most dom­i­nant at the su­per­stra­ta (the lead­er­ship lev­el), it was bro­ken in­to pieces at the sub­stra­ta (amongst the elec­torate), as even the male UNC vot­ers ral­lied around her, sug­gest­ing that the Trin­ba­go elec­torate is more than ready for a fe­male Prime Min­is­ter. Like a mas­ter weaver, Kam­la skill­ful­ly and suc­cess­ful­ly wove the gen­der fac­tor in­to her pri­ma­ry strat­e­gy and goal of gov­er­nance. She was ready to lead the par­ty in­to gov­ern­ment as Prime Min­is­ter, not Op­po­si­tion Leader–si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as sis­ter, daugh­ter, moth­er, grand­moth­er and...woman. Af­ter all, who can bet­ter mul­ti-task than a woman?

To be con­tin­ued next week...