By Stephen Kangal
January 09, 2008
The unfortunate decision of the Speaker, the Honourable Barendra Sinanan to debar unconstitutionally members of the COP wearing their attention-grabbing, artistic logo from attending the second sitting of the House as responsible members of the public gallery to listen to the debate on crime is clearly symptomatic of electoral justice gone mad.
This discriminatory and disenfranchising system for determining electoral representation in our Parliament in a plural society denied in 2007,148,000 citizens from being officially heard and represented in parliament. Parliament in the eyes of these 148,000 citizens no longer has any legitimacy. But it has deteriorated further.
Continue reading House Standing Orders Unconstitutional
The print media has a critical role to play in hosting the political and institutional memory of T&T that is noted for its traditional forgetfulness. The media must also serve as an archive documenting political position and conduct to deter politicians from manipulating us conveniently at their whims and fancies.
The Manning Ministers have been selectively and actively preaching that the issue of instituting measures to arrest the crime pandemic will always be treated as a politically non-partisan matter. But PM Manning will not practice it and come out from his political crease when the occasion demands.
The voice of the people, we are often reminded, is the voice of God. My rejoinder to this scriptural interpretation of democracy is: the masses so often prove to be asses, one wonders if God has any influence in secular matters like elections, party affiliations, and worst of all, in leaders people choose to anoint or lionise. Six weeks ago close to 200,000 Trinidadians chose Basdeo Panday and the UNC to represent them in Parliament. In fact, a few years ago twice that many among the electorate not only voted him into power, but hoisted him on their shoulders as Prime Minister and paraded him as a lion-king, exemplar supreme.
In a crafty surgical strike designed to stem the upward political mobility of Winston Dookeran and political emergence of Anand Ramlogan, the master puppeteer has resurrected Ramesh from the proverbial political cemetery in which he interned him after the 18-18 tie, 2001 general elections. The predictably blind and politically naive of his declining UNC base supports this resuscitation even though he was stigmatised as the great betrayer.