By Raffique Shah
May 19, 2017
I did a double-take upon reading Freddie Kissoon’s post-May Day column in the Kaieteur News of Guyana. I don’t know Kissoon personally, but I do know that he’s an activist and a writer who is not averse to controversy, who writes as he sees things, damn the consequences.
Continue reading Indian Tribalism
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 22, 2017
Last Friday Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 45th president of the United States of America. As in so many other offensive things he has tweeted since November, Trump began this year by trying to besmirch (unfortunately one dictionary defines the meaning of this word as “to blacken”) the reputation of John Lewis and his courageous actions in turning the USA away from its segregationist past and setting it on a path to achieve its founders’ dreams.
Here is a man, with no sense of history, dismissing an icon of America’s attempt to redeem its past, with a silly phrase “All talk, talk, talk-no action or results.” Such disparagement led David Remnick of the New Yorker to ask: “Who would have the impoverished language to dismiss the whole of John Lewis as “sad”? To which he answers: “As it happens, the President-elect of the US.”
Continue reading President Trump and the Black Blowback
By Dr. Selwyn Cudjoe
December 04, 2016
The People’s National Movement (PNM) ought to chill; ask what it is doing wrong; recharge its battery; and then take it from there. It lost the local government election and people are losing confidence in its leadership.
This is one situation in which loud talking and grand charging are unlikely to solve the problem at hand. The situation calls for calm, cool and reflective thinking. The election results are clear: The PNM won seven corporations (down from eight in the last elections); the United National Congress (UNC) won six. The PNM and UNC received four seats each in Sangre Grande. PNM lost about 12 seats to the UNC.
Continue reading No longer blinded by our eyes
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 28, 2016
Tomorrow is Election Day. It is the first time the populace will have an opportunity to express their views about their new government. Although one expects the PNM to triumph in this campaign, it has not evoked the same passions of the last election, nor for that matter, the same urgency. Whatever its outcome, it will be a referendum on the prime minister’s leadership.
Continue reading Roti Diplomacy
By Stephen Kangal
November 25, 2016
Both Public Service Reform as well as Local Government Reform has been the political football of PNM governments past and present with nothing of substance to show during years of issuing all colours of Paper and holding consultations galore the last being the year-long political façade conducted by former Local Government Minister Franklin Khan.
Continue reading PNM Has No Credibility on LG Reform
By Raffique Shah
November 23, 2016
The campaign for next Monday’s local government elections has degenerated into a dogfight that is dominated by fluff, innuendoes, outright lies and a teaspoon of violence which the main combatants, PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley and UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, hope will generate a large voter turnout and salvage their respective political careers.
Continue reading The corbeaux are circling
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 31, 2016
At the last US presidential debate when Donald Trump looked over at Hillary Clinton and said, “Such a nasty woman,” he sounded the death knell of his campaign. It was almost like looking at Hillary with disdain and saying in Trini language, “Yuh nastiness.”
This insult has had a more devastating effect on Trump’s candidacy than anything else he has said or done previously. Not even his infamous boast about grabbing women’s genitals has had such a devastating effect on his White House ambitions. “Nasty woman” has become a rallying cry among women and that, as they say in T&T, was the end of Solomon Gundi.
Continue reading “Yuh Nastiness”
By Raffique Shah
Submitted: August 23, 2016
Posted: August 28, 2016
I don’t know that the majority of people in the country are influenced in any way by the manifestos presented by various parties—in our case two, one from the UNC/PP and the other from the PNM.
In fact, I believe few people, likely less than ten percent of the electorate, read these voluminous documents. In my case, I sought the synopses of the presenters because I know they will have highlighted what they saw as the fundamentals of what they would implement if elected, and certainly their most marketable offerings.
Continue reading Half truths and manifestos
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 22, 2016
One of our problems in Trinidad and Tobago is our attempt, sometimes, to normalize non-sense and call it wisdom. Take the non-sense offered by Joan Yuille-Williams that Patrick Manning called the 2010 election to expand our democracy or that by so doing he expanded our democratic possibilities. Not content with such non-sense she threw God into the mix as if to say, “God make him do it.”
Continue reading Normalizing Non-sense
…judge says the the EBC was wrong to extend voting time
By Rickie Ramdass
Aug 19, 2016 – trinidadexpress.com
Voters display their stained fingers after casting their ballots in the September 7 2015 general election. Photo: Trevor Watson
THE election petitions filed by the United National Congress (UNC) which sought to declare the results in five constituencies null and void as a result of the general election day decision of the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) to extending the voting time by one hour, has been dismissed.
Continue reading ELECTION PETITIONS DISMISSED