By Stephen Kangal
December 14, 2007
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.
This forced opening of the proverbial Panday Box has consequences which even Panday, the master tactician and con artiste will be unable to manipulate or control. Will sister Kamla be a disinterested observer and continue to crawl on her belly as a victim of another Brahmin conspiracy hatched to sideline her and install a dissident?
Mr.Panday is the supreme -cut- and- paste and contortionist artist having regard to the ease with which he can erase the events of political history and memories of neemakharamism/treachery from his chelas. They have now slavishly and like devoted chelas supported the political re-incarnation of “sack cloth and ashes” Ramesh. The latter is not known to nor has demonstrated any track record of building a political institution from ground zero level. Piggy backing is his forte.
He is the one who singularly brought down the 2000 Panday Administration. Unlike Mr. Dookeran, Ramesh summarily dispensed with his loyal followers in Team Unity post-2001. He could not establish anything viable resembling a political base.
In one year of hard work Mr. Dookeran, a true political visionary and planner, gave life and breath to the galloping, broadly-based, organisationally strong and truly national party, the COP. COP’s emergence is the real threat that the perpetuation of the Panday dynasty cannot condone nor ignore.
Ramesh will use his re-incarnation as Chief Whip within the UNC to launch his leadership stakes. That is his political right. But his traditional, raw bulldozing modus operandi will result in either UNC implosion or exodus of MP’s to the safe haven provided by the COP umbrella or both. Ramesh will court a strategic lethal alliance with UNC majority shareholder and political novice, Jack Warner in the former’s vaulting ambitious bid to take over the UNC. That is the vehicle that he will rely upon to propel him into his life-long, elusive goal of Prime Ministership.
The seeds of his not-so-secret, incipient take-over political agenda have already been sown. Witness the vocal Gasparillo demonstration and proposed crime march to POS, arming of his Tabaquite constituents and proposed police posts to be housed in his offices. His clear public eclipse of the wounded lion by his immediate and ubiquitous hold over and monopoly of the media space as UNC spokesman is neither accidental nor circumstantial.
Political ambition, however, must be made of sterner stuff.
Ramesh’s re-emergence is really a case of too little too late, and of putting a plaster over a festering sore. The UNC is a dead horse with very little credibility in the eyes of the majority of the population. Ramesh as I see it, is only a hot-headed mouthpiece, who can do nothing but try to remind that there actually is an opposition in the house. He himself, is not squeaky clean, and has I am sure that his murky past will be ressurected during this political term. I look forward to the entertainment that this will bring. The word that you have used Stephen – “Unleashing” is far too powerful to describe Ramesh’s attempted comeback.
I dont understand you at all, this is confusing
In 1945 the Colonial Office wrote a report telling the then govenor that Indians NOT be given the right to vote but most local ppl were against it, I sure wished the creole ppl had listen to the brits back then we’d be much better off.
The British employed divide and rule in presiding over their Caribbean Empire. This created far reaching damage to the psyche of subjects and their descendants. Such damage still evidently pervades the mentality of many today, eh Mikes? I am a firm believer in democracy and freedom of speech, but then again, if one has nothing intelligent or constructive to contribute, then one really shouldn’t. Pick up a book and expand you mind, man!
Mike Wrote:
In 1945 the Colonial Office wrote a report telling the then govenor that Indians NOT be given the right to vote but most local ppl were against it, I sure wished the creole ppl had listen to the brits back then we’d be much better off.
I vehemently disagree with you Mike. Trinidad and Tobago could not be better off today if Indians were denied the right to vote, anymore than it would be if Africans were still being enslaved by the British. And we as Africans should be willing to call down a pox on any racist house regardless.
The unique experiences of Africans should render them visceral opponents to any kind of discrimination or marginalization. If there was a generic poster of a racial discrimination victim it would be an African. The human world is constructed on a color and racial continuum, where if you are white you are alright, if you are brown you can stick around, but if you are black then you have to stand back. And black in this context includes skin color and hair texture.
There are many who happily use the template constructed to rationalize the enslavement of Africans as the foundation for their judgement of human worth. We must find such formulations unconditionally despicable, regardless of its application elsewhere. We must never compromise when confronting racism, petuantly or otherwise.
There was once a party call UNC, no more I say for Panday and all his puppets need to fall to the feet of Mr. Dookeran, a true political.
The COP’s will rule TNT one day soon under the leadership of Mr. Dookeran.
Khris
Canada