Gail Alexan­der

In the pub­lic mind the stig­ma of cor­rup­tion is still at­tached to the UNC as it is to the PNM, ac­cord­ing to COP deputy leader Robert May­ers who is crit­i­cal of the op­po­si­tion group­ing's re­cent arrange­ment. "If the UNC wins up­com­ing elec­tions, it would there­fore be noth­ing more than ex­change," May­ers added, say­ing the arrange­ment should prop­er­ly al­low the COP to act as pro­tec­tor of the peo­ple and the na­tion­al purse. May­ers was over­seas last week when the arrange­ment was ce­ment­ed among the UNC/COP/TOP/NJAC and MSJ. May­ers re­turned Sun­day.

Stat­ing he was kept abreast of ne­go­ti­a­tions and was aware of the arrange­ment's de­tails, May­ers, while sup­port­ive of uni­ty, voiced con­cerns in a state­ment yes­ter­day. Even if COP agreed to the arrange­ment, May­ers added that he felt du­ty-bound to state his con­cerns in the na­tion­al in­ter­est. He said he re­ceived calls from COP mem­bers with sim­i­lar con­cerns.

He said he would not mount any joint plat­form al­though he would go on a COP plat­form and as­sist some par­ty can­di­dates. May­ers' state­ment agreed that, in the con­text of T&T pol­i­tics, uni­ty was the "great need of the hour." "How­ev­er, the con­cept gain­ing cur­ren­cy on the ground doesn't seem to be in sync with what the lead­ers of the Op­po­si­tion coali­tion are em­brac­ing," he said. "To them, uni­ty is about join­ing forces to rid T&T of Man­ning's PNM, which is a use­ful and ex­pe­di­ent start, per­haps, but one that hard­ly be­gins to come to grips with the re­al po­lit­i­cal chal­lenge of our time. "Some­how, we've been led to be­lieve this uni­ty can be pur­chased cheap­ly. That all we need is for Africans and East In­di­ans to work to­geth­er," May­ers said. "That there are a few ig­no­rant peo­ple on both sides who are trapped in the prej­u­dices of the past and if the dem­a­gogues and politi­cians who ex­ploit these di­vi­sions just go away, all our prob­lems would be solved.

"Since the date was pulled from Patrick's back pock­et, we've wit­nessed a se­ries of mus­cle-flex­ing pow­er­plays by men and women, whose am­bi­tions are far larg­er than their tal­ents, fight­ing for po­si­tions in a gov­ern­ment they are yet to oc­cu­py; some­thing we call "count­ing eggs" in a cer­tain part of the fowl's anato­my. "Thus we will end up with a PNM vs UNC elec­tion fight with a few can­di­dates from COP and oth­er par­ties be­ing thrown in as back­drop to add a thin ve­neer to their al­ready dis­tort­ed con­cept of 'uni­ty.' "What Messrs (Jack) Warn­er and (Su­ruj) Ram­bachan et al fail to grasp is that ex­cept for one meet­ing held in the East, Mrs (Kam­la) Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­cent cam­paign to be­come the dar­ling of T&T's pol­i­tics nev­er crossed the Churchill-Roo­sevelt High­way and, un­for­tu­nate­ly, this is not a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. "The UNC hi­er­ar­chy must un­der­stand that in the pub­lic mind, the stig­ma of cor­rup­tion is still at­tached to their par­ty as it does to the PNM. There­fore, if they should win this elec­tion, it will be noth­ing more than 'ex­change.'

"Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is al­low­ing a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to once more elude T&T. Her pre­de­ces­sor squan­dered it in 1995. The trans­for­ma­tion process was hers to ini­ti­ate; which sug­gests that while she may be in charge of the UNC, she's def­i­nite­ly not in con­trol. "Giv­en the 'gar­ri­son' na­ture of our elec­toral pol­i­tics, the pub­lic mind can on­ly be re­lieved of its dis­qui­et if the COP is al­lowed to play a sig­nif­i­cant role in which the par­tic­i­pa­tion of its can­di­dates would be ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary to the for­ma­tion of any fu­ture gov­ern­ment. This way, the COP would be able to car­ry out its func­tion as a sort of pro­tec­tor of the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

"Un­for­tu­nate­ly, per­son­al am­bi­tions/agen­das ap­pear to be tak­ing prece­dence to the detri­ment of us all and the big pic­ture re­mains con­fined to the cat­e­go­ry of il­lu­sion." Stat­ing that uni­ty can­not be bought "on sale", May­ers said: "What we're ex­pe­ri­enc­ing now is the same old pol­i­tics that dri­ves us apart and the log­ic hasn't changed in 50 years. "That is why those of us who be­lieve in a new and dif­fer­ent day must be­gin to mo­bilise along the lines of a gen­uine na­tion­al par­ty with a mes­sage of hope and of good gov­er­nance...That is what the COP is sup­posed to rep­re­sent."

RE­SPONS­ES:

COP uni­ty team mem­ber Clyde Weath­er­head: "The process of peo­ple com­ing to terms with the arrange­ment is still go­ing on. Over com­ing weeks, this may be­come less im­por­tant. Every­one en­tered the talks with ex­pec­ta­tions, some re­al­is­tic, oth­ers, not as much. Un­der the cir­cum­stances COP will do the best we can, and our du­ty." COP uni­ty team mem­ber Gan­ga Singh: "Mr Dook­er­an has laid down the frame­work es­tab­lish­ing com­mon cre­den­tials and the frame­work for gov­er­nance ahead and ad­her­ence to good gov­er­nance in the pub­lic in­ter­est to en­sure elec­tion promis­es have cred­i­bil­i­ty. He set up a team un­der Pro­fes­sor Patrick Wat­son to re­port with­in ten days on the new ad­min­is­tra­tion's ca­pac­i­ty to ful­fill its elec­tion promis­es." UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal: "We're not ne­go­ti­at­ing uni­ty any­more. That dis­cus­sion is end­ed. We're fi­nal­is­ing the man­i­festo and that will have op­ti­mum con­tri­bu­tions of all the par­ties."

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