Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Is­rael Khan, SC, be­lieves he has no chance in hell of be­com­ing the coun­try’s next Pres­i­dent. In an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian, Khan said he was prepar­ing for what he called a ‘cut ar­se’ when the elec­toral col­lege votes on Fri­day in a se­cret bal­lot.

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' (UNC) pres­i­den­tial nom­i­nee sug­gest­ed that due to his out­spo­ken­ness, he would not be cho­sen as Pres­i­dent. If he be­comes Pres­i­dent, how­ev­er, Khan said he would con­tin­ue to speak his mind open­ly and pub­licly to de­fend truth and jus­tice. Khan in­sist­ed he was not in­ter­est­ed in par­ty po­si­tions, but in in­de­pen­dent po­si­tions that do not an­swer to politi­cians.

The se­nior at­tor­ney de­scribed his com­peti­tor Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as some­one "steeped in­to the PNM (Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment) par­ty" and like­ly to toe the of­fi­cial line.

Com­ment­ing on the term of out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes, Khan iden­ti­fied her biggest mis­take as the with­draw­al of the mer­it list for the post of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. "There are a lot of things this Pres­i­dent can­not say be­cause it’s not in her per­son­al­i­ty be­cause she’s not Is­rael Khan," he added. He de­scribed Weekes as "prim and prop­er" and one who "goes by the pro­to­col."

He be­lieves the PNM, which holds a par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, will stick to the par­ty line and elect their can­di­date Kan­ga­loo.

The coun­try’s sev­enth pres­i­dent will be elect­ed on Fri­day to re­place Weekes. The col­lege will choose be­tween Kan­ga­loo and Khan.

On Fri­day, Guardian Me­dia sat down with the well-known at­tor­ney for a one-on-one in­ter­view.

Q: Mr Khan, straight to the point, do you want the pres­i­den­cy?

A: Well, I’ve con­sent­ed to have my name placed be­fore the Elec­toral Col­lege, but I know I don’t have a snow­ball of a chance in hell to be elect­ed Pres­i­dent.

Why do you be­lieve that?

Be­cause the PNM con­trols the great ma­jor­i­ty of votes in the Par­lia­ment.

So you don’t think there’s any pos­si­bil­i­ty of mem­bers per­haps go­ing against the par­ty line and vot­ing for you?

As­sum­ing even if ten peo­ple from the PNM vote for me, I still wouldn’t win.

But do you be­lieve you have, at least, the unan­i­mous sup­port of the UNC side?

I have the unan­i­mous sup­port of all the Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment of the UNC.

So if you were elect­ed pres­i­dent, what would be the first thing you would do?

Well, the first thing I will try to do is try to be fair and fear­less, and ap­point peo­ple on their abil­i­ty, mer­it and in­tegri­ty, re­gard­less of race, I wouldn’t think about that.

One of the things Dr Row­ley said as to why he is not in agree­ment with the choice of you as a Pres­i­dent is be­cause of how you have crit­i­cised him. What are your thoughts on this?

No, he didn’t say I crit­i­cised him. He said I’ve abused him pub­licly. He’s pre­tend­ing to be the vic­tim in this mat­ter. He’s no vic­tim. He was to­tal­ly out of place to send an email to tell In­shan Is­mael to "Kiss my as*." He said that open­ly, and I said that is high­ly un­be­com­ing of a Prime Min­is­ter; that he does not de­serve to be Prime Min­is­ter.

Then, he said, that cer­tain lawyers when they win a case against the State want to claim costs that they are bot­tom feed­ers, and I went to town in an ar­ti­cle, say­ing he’s a char­la­tan, an im­poster, he’s a jack­ass putting on the robe of a li­on, and when he be­lieves he roar­ing, he re­al­ly bray­ing.

He crit­i­cis­ing every­body, but no­body must crit­i­cise him. Most of all, he had the au­dac­i­ty when Kam­la was Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try–an East In­di­an, Hin­du woman–to go on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form and say he has bet­ter taste in women, so he will keep his dog­gy and she will keep her cat. He said so open­ly. I told him if an East In­di­an man was the leader of the Op­po­si­tion, you think he could have said that about an African woman who is the Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try? Blood and brim­stone would have flowed in this coun­try.

So, he wants to say what he wants. He wants to do what he wants.

I have been blaz­ing Kam­la. Look at re­cent­ly...I have noth­ing against Kam­la. I sup­port her as the de ju­re/de fac­to leader of the UNC.

My po­lit­i­cal par­ty is PIP. You know what is the mean­ing of that? Par­ty in Pow­er. It doesn’t mat­ter what par­ty win the elec­tion. If they go the straight way, I will sup­port you. If you re­move your­self from serv­ing the peo­ple, I will crit­i­cise you.

Now Kam­la crit­i­cised cer­tain se­nior at­tor­neys be­cause they went and sup­port the AG in a no-vote mo­tion, and call them CEPEP lawyers, and sin­gle out Mar­tineau. And I wrote an ar­ti­cle and said she is fast and out of place, and be­rate her, and told her she’s not silk ma­te­r­i­al. I went over­board. I apol­o­gised to her about it re­cent­ly. I said I went over­board and she said she went over­board. I said you can­not pass com­ment on lawyers like that. They have the con­sti­tu­tion­al right to sup­port or not to sup­port. That is their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic right. And you know the la­dy still se­lect me to be pres­i­dent. It shows she’s not ma­li­cious. She’s not a ma­li­cious per­son.

The Prime Min­is­ter claimed that you are the per­son­al at­tor­ney of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Is there any truth to that state­ment?

No. What is true to that state­ment, I got out of pol­i­tics.

I had noth­ing to do with them un­til Row­ley made the false al­le­ga­tion against her in re­la­tion to Email­gate. When that hap­pened, in spite of the fact that she knew that I sup­port­ed the PNM par­ty...I taught Mooni­lal at law school, and he rec­om­mend­ed that I rep­re­sent her. I said this will be a pri­vate brief. I rep­re­sent­ed her in the Email­gate af­fair and I charged her the full fee. She paid a fee, not from a gov­ern­ment-paid cheque, but from a per­son­al cheque, a heavy fee, and it was a pri­vate brief. And the whole coun­try knew I rep­re­sent­ed her. I didn’t rep­re­sent her be­cause she was the Prime Min­is­ter of the coun­try. I rep­re­sent­ed her be­cause she came to me, just as if Row­ley came to me or Man­ning.

When Man­ning put me on the Uff Com­mis­sion and Calder Hart said Row­ley told him that he was the point man for the Syr­i­an com­mu­ni­ty, and he come be­fore the com­mit­tee, and I de­stroy him with cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, pro­tect­ing Row­ley be­cause I know if that is so, Row­ley would nev­er tell him that, and so on...And Row­ley was very hap­py I did that.

I on­ly met Row­ley two times in my life, you know. One was at a par­ty–a (Mar­tin) Daly Car­ni­val par­ty. He wasn’t very so­cial. He was very qui­et. Then, the next time I cross-ex­am­ined him at the Uff Com­mis­sion and I saw him out­side, and I told him per­son­al­ly (in the pres­ence of his at­tor­ney, Pe­ter­son, who I had trained in ser­vice days) that he has three lawyers: his wife, Pe­ter­son, and his daugh­ter, and all he did was smile, and so on. I left it at that. If he had his fight with Man­ning, that’s his busi­ness.

You have a long-stand­ing re­la­tion­ship, well, maybe I shouldn’t say re­la­tion­ship, but you’ve known Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a long time, haven’t you?

I know her at law school. She was a stu­dent, but I nev­er taught her. I’ve been teach­ing at the Hugh Wood­ing Law School for the past 34 years and I’m still teach­ing there. Many lawyers. And I know her since the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) days. When (Bas­deo) Pan­day (for­mer prime min­is­ter) and they re­moved them­selves and formed Club 88, Gan­ga Singh re­mained in the NAR, I re­mained in the NAR, and she re­mained in the NAR.

It’s af­ter they served their pe­ri­od of be­ing al­der­man that they went over to UNC, and then they say if I will come over? I said no, I’m not go­ing to get in­volved in pol­i­tics be­cause I saw the kind of back­stab­bing that was tak­ing place. (ANR) Robin­son stabbed Bas­deo Pan­day in his back. Bas­deo Pan­day stab up Robin­son in his back.

There’s this wide­spread opin­ion that the pres­i­den­cy is use­less in its cur­rent form. Do you share that per­cep­tion?

No. What has hap­pened is that the Pres­i­dent is a pow­er­ful in­sti­tu­tion be­hind the scenes. What the Pres­i­dent does is ap­point her own de­lib­er­ate judge­ment, af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with the Prime Min­is­ter and the leader of the Op­po­si­tion, the Chief Jus­tice of the coun­try, and the Chief Jus­tice as the head of the Ju­di­cial Le­gal Com­mis­sion, he con­trols that com­mis­sion, and that com­mis­sion ap­points all the judges and mag­is­trates in the coun­try. So, in­di­rect­ly, the Pres­i­dent has a lot of pow­er…It is a pow­er­ful po­si­tion be­cause the Pres­i­dent ap­points al­so the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion. The PSC now has a su­per­vi­so­ry eye over the po­lice ser­vice.

Presidential candidate Israel Khan, SC.

NICOLE DRAYTON

Some of the pub­lic crit­i­cism to­wards re­cent pres­i­dents has been that they sort of lack a back­bone and haven’t spo­ken up about cer­tain things. Do you be­lieve you are the right choice–the peo­ple’s choice–who might stand up and say what needs to be said?

If I were elect­ed pres­i­dent, I know I’m go­ing to get a good cut ar­se. I know that, and they still put my name for­ward. In the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly in the PNM par­ty, they are well or­gan­ised, and they fol­low the dic­tate of the whip of the par­ty. Like how Row­ley broke ranks, that’s on­ly one, and vote for (ANR) Robin­son (for­mer pres­i­dent). They will vote for the des­ig­nat­ed can­di­date. We all know that. I would have been a dif­fer­ent pres­i­dent. I would speak out. And if the Prime Min­is­ter who rec­om­mend­ed me is out of place, I would have put him in his place.

Like, for in­stance, if I were Pres­i­dent, I would have made a state­ment, and my Prime Min­is­ter who ap­point­ed me could do what he wants, the ev­i­dence out in the present do­main against the present Chief Jus­tice is so strong that I have asked the Prime Min­is­ter why he’s not trig­ger­ing a 137 tri­bunal to find out if the al­le­ga­tions are true. Not to make a de­ter­mi­na­tion, but to find out. Be­cause what they were say­ing is that he al­leged­ly was mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions for hous­es for his friends (edit­ed) and they were tak­ing mon­ey from peo­ple. Pho­tographs sur­faced with him al­leged­ly...You know the whole bac­cha­nal. But Row­ley said he was not trig­ger­ing 137. He said so be­cause he want­ed the Chief Jus­tice to be ob­lig­at­ed to him. That is what.

The PNM’s Pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has had long-stand­ing link­ages with the PNM. What are your thoughts on her con­nec­tion to the par­ty?

Well, I will not com­ment on that be­cause what has hap­pened is that it would not be prop­er to com­ment on the oth­er can­di­date. She’s aligned with the po­lit­i­cal par­ty and there are In­di­ans. And it’s an in­di­ca­tion that In­di­ans have been sup­port­ing the PNM par­ty and I’ll come back to that. She might turn out to be im­par­tial. It’s left to be seen. But it’s the politi­cians who will han­dle that. She’s steeped in­to the PNM par­ty but that is their busi­ness. I’m not go­ing there.

In gen­er­al terms, do you think there’s a dan­ger in hav­ing some­one who is po­lit­i­cal­ly aligned in the pres­i­dent’s of­fice, giv­en the func­tions of the Pres­i­dent?

It’s a dan­ger­ous prece­dent, but that doesn’t mean she wouldn’t per­form im­par­tial­ly. It’s about her per­son­al­i­ty.

Have you ever in­ter­act­ed with Ms Kan­ga­loo?

No. I don’t know her at all. I know her hus­band as a lawyer to lawyer.

How do you think the cur­rent Pres­i­dent has per­formed in the po­si­tion?

What hap­pened to the cur­rent Pres­i­dent, as far as I am con­cerned, and I don’t want to talk too much about it, is the is­sue of the with­draw­al of the mer­it list. She made a big faux pas there be­cause I don’t know if she knew that it’s the chair­per­son of the com­mis­sion tak­ing back the list and not the com­mis­sion.

What hap­pen? They think peo­ple are stu­pid? It’s by co­in­ci­dence the Prime Min­is­ter went up there, just at the same time that the la­dy go­ing up there to give the Pres­i­dent the list? There are a lot of things this Pres­i­dent can­not say be­cause it’s not in her per­son­al­i­ty be­cause she’s not Is­rael Khan. She’s prim and prop­er and goes by the pro­to­col.

Who do you think is the coun­try’s best Pres­i­dent to date?

Robin­son. Did he not do what he was sup­posed to do? When Robin­son's life was on the line at the Red House there, you know what he said when they gave him the mic to say the gov­ern­ment col­lapsed and to ask the army to drop their weapons? He said to at­tack with full force. He was will­ing to put his life on the line for this coun­try. He put his life on the line.

Do you think the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal cli­mate/en­vi­ron­ment al­lows for a politi­cian who will put the coun­try first and not the par­ty first?

You see what hap­pens, the time a par­ty get in­to pow­er, the very next day they start do­ing things to per­pet­u­ate that pow­er over the next five years. All they are think­ing about is stay­ing in pow­er, and that shouldn’t be so. You know what this coun­try needs? This coun­try needs a benev­o­lent dic­ta­tor. This coun­try needs a one-par­ty state with a strong army and a strong po­lice force. That’s what it needs. This coun­try is very hard to gov­ern, you know. Very hard to gov­ern.

You know what would have hap­pened if we had an East-In­di­an dom­i­nant gov­ern­ment and the po­lice who are try­ing to serve and pro­tect, and there are so many young African peo­ple be­ing killed for shoot­ing at the po­lice and so on? They would have run a ru­mour that the East In­di­ans killing Africans in this coun­try. So it’s a bless­ing in dis­guise that the East In­di­ans didn’t cap­ture po­lit­i­cal pow­er in this coun­try…Every­thing in this coun­try is race. The on­ly thing not racial in this coun­try is buy­ing dou­bles.

5 things you may not know about Is­rael Khan

1. On Sat­ur­days I go to ei­ther one of my es­tates in the coun­try­side where I in­ter­act with the work­ers, make a cur­ry duck lime with them and drink a lit­tle pun­cheon. Now that they have de­crim­i­nalised mar­i­jua­na, now and then I will take a lit­tle pull with them.

2. I am an ex­treme­ly pri­vate per­son. My wife was a teacher at St Joseph's Con­vent in St Joseph and served there for 28 years. She is very proud of that. I am hap­py with all of my four chil­dren (three boys and a girl) who are in­de­pen­dent and with my fam­i­ly life. I live a pri­vate life.

3. I love to watch a movie now and then at Movi­eTowne and eat piz­za when I go.

4. I am very care­ful about what I eat at my age and I ex­er­cise.

5. I am a bird watch­er, I love watch­ing birds, the feath­ered ones.