By Raffique Shah
April 20, 2014
The UNC minister or activist who mobilised a gang of hooligans to disrupt a public meeting staged by dissident Barrington “Skippy” Thomas last Thursday evening should be taken before the party’s firing squad and shot—with “goat pills”. He (or she) has done irreparable damage to the United National Congress’s image, if that is at all possible.
Continue reading ‘Crucifixions and Resurrections’
By Shaliza Hassanali
March 30, 2014 – guardian.co.tt
Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma is under investigation by the police for the assault of his former girlfriend. Sacha Singh, the managing director of AMS Biotech Security Concept and AmSure T&T Ltd, who is in her late 20s, met with officers of the St Joseph Police Station on Friday at her Piarco business and gave a statement of Sharma’s alleged physical abuse during an altercation on March 12 at Grand Bazaar. Though a police investigation into such a matter can take as long as six months, the Sunday Guardian learnt that because of the high-profile nature of the matter it is being fast-tracked. ASP Joanne Archie, public information officer of the T&T Police Service, yesterday confirmed that an investigation was being conducted by the police against Sharma: “Statements were recorded and the investigation is in progress.”
Continue reading ‘Police probing Chandresh for assault of ex-girlfriend’
By Raffique Shah
December 29, 2013
Politically, 2013 will be remembered as the year of unprecedented multiple elections. It was the year that marked the beginning of the demise of the People’s Partnership; the year in which Jack Warner’s meteor burned brightly before it died an unnatural death; and the year that saw the People’s National Movement (PNM), for yet another time, rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of defeat, to position itself for a return to power.
Continue reading ‘Year of the Fall’
By Raffique Shah
December 14, 2013
Among the three of them, Basdeo Panday, Jack Warner and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj have accumulated 220 years on earth. You would think that these three geezers, having experienced a spread of political permutations, from the crown colony system and colonialism to independence and republicanism, would have also accumulated the wisdom to discern that they have long passed their political-expiry dates.
Continue reading ‘Bas, Ram and Jack’
By Stephen Kangal
November 19, 2013
It is now patently clear that the mathematically-challenged eleventh hour imposition of the hapless PR formula based on the infamous 25% threshold without undertaking the requisite public consultations by the PPG has crystallized into a pure, unmitigated electoral disaster that back-fired big time. It consigned thousands of burgesses/ electoral districts to be without representation in their respective local government councils.
Continue reading ‘‘Democracy-Strengthening’ PR An Abject Disaster’
By Raffique Shah
November 17, 2013
Much to the dismay of its detractors, the People’s National Movement (PNM) bounces back like the proverbial bad penny almost ritually every five years since it first lost an election in 1986. In the current political scenario, unless the 57-year-old party shoots itself in the head, the incumbents discover some magical elixir, or a mass uprising, a kind of “Trinidad spring”, occurs and spawns something new and exciting, the PNM will return to power in 2015.
Continue reading ‘Prove me wrong, PNM’
By Stephen Kangal
November 11, 2013
Being a classic marginal seat, Monday’s St. Joseph Constituency (SJC) bye-election results have encapsulated and mirrored the psycho-political underpinnings of the changing electoral dynamics as well as of the traditional ethnic moorings impacting on and progressively shaping the national political/electoral psyche- a microcosm of the macrocosm.
Continue reading ‘St Joseph Embodied the National Electoral Psyche’
By Raffique Shah
November 10, 2013
Many readers scoffed at my suggestion in last week’s column that a rapprochement between UNC/COP and the ILP was a strong possibility in the run-up to the next general elections, due no later than August 2015. I imagine diehard supporters on both sides of the divide feel deeply wounded by the abuse their leaders hurled at each other during the three campaigns conducted since Jack Warner broke with the United National Congress (UNC) and formed the Independent Liberal Party (ILP).
Continue reading ‘Facing Elections Nightmare’
By Andre Bagoo and Clint Chan Tack
November 05, 2013 – newsday.co.tt
THE PEOPLE’s National Movement (PNM) candidate Terrence Deyalsingh was last night declared the winner of the St Joseph bye-election, but only after the country was taken to a nail- biting finish for what was expected to be the last election in a historic year.
Deyalsingh’s nearest rival was the United National Congress (UNC)’s Ian Alleyne who, at some points in the night, appeared in the lead. The Independent Liberal Party (ILP)’s Om Lalla managed the third largest share of votes but was not really in the contest.
Continue reading ‘PNM WINS AGAIN’
By Stephen Kangal
November 04, 2013
It is very disturbing that the St. Joseph bye-election was fixed for November 4 by a Government whose real base is the Divali aficionados. The requisite consideration for the simple and well-known fact that the intensity of the pre-election campaigning would coincide with, distract from and up-stage the well-known calendar of pre-divali centralized festivities and regional/village observances was carelessly not factored into the decision-making scenario.
Continue reading ‘Bye-Elections Up-Staged and Politicised Divali’
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