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 →

By Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 31, 2007

I suppose I can say publicly what Selwyn Ryan (See Express, December 23) can say privately and obliquely when he speaks about the specter of the non-representation of twenty five percent of the population and the impending disenfranchisement of Africans in the political process that is likely to happen here eventually if we do not attend to this situation. Forbes Burnham and the PNC ruled Guyana by fair means and foul although they were fewer in numbers than the PPP until the PPP booted them out never to see power again in the foreseeable future.
Continue reading Acting in Our Self-Interest →

By Stephen Kangal
December 31, 2007

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.
Continue reading Not So Senate President Montano! →

By Dr. Kwame Nantambu
December 30, 2007

One of the most disgraceful, disgusting, shameless and tasteless spectacles on TnT’s political landscape was the puerile behavior by putative mature, adult, elected and non-elected UNC-A parliamentarians at the recent opening of Parliament on 17 December, 2007.

If that was the public behavior of educated adults then it need occasion no great surprise that the uneducated, immature young people in TnT behave in a similar disrespectful fashion: “Monkey see, monkey do.”
Continue reading Opposition in the Opposition →

By Stephen Kangal
December 23, 2007

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.

Mr.Winston Dookeran a former MP, Central Bank Governor and Leader of 148,000 citizens who are now without representation in Parliament, pounded the pavement and endured the pouring rains in front of Whitehall on Thursday with a large group of followers. His mission was to highlight publicly the further escalation of murders and the impotence of the Manning Cabinet in being able to reduce and stem the rising tide.
Continue reading Manning Cannot Act Non-Partisan →

By Raffique Shah
Sunday, December 23rd 2007

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.
Continue reading ‘How fortunate for leaders that men do not think’ →

PM on Mustill Report: I have no further role in matter
“The Prime Minister merely referred the matter to the President to appoint the tribunal. The Prime Minister has no further role to play. I am waiting like everyone else.”
Prime Minister Patrick Manning is distancing himself from the findings of the Mustill Report that cleared Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma of any wrongdoing.

CJ Sharma cleared
Hours after he received an official copy of the Lord Mustill Tribunal report, President George Maxwell Richards revoked the suspension of embattled Chief Justice Sat Sharma, paving the way for him to return to his job at the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain, today.

SHARMA RETURNS
The Chief Justice does not have to prove anything at all.
His stance is purely defensive
Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma yesterday dusted off his judicial robes, ready to return to office today after an international tribunal found that the case brought against him on a charge of judicial misconduct was weak.

Cleared by impeachment tribunal…
Sharma plans return to work
In a bold move, an insistent Chief Justice Satnarine Sharma says he intends to return to his chambers at the Hall of Justice today, having been let off by the impeachment tribunal which investigated him…

President: Mustill report to be made public soon
The contents of the long-anticipated Mustill tribunal report will soon be made public, President George Maxwell Richards said yesterday.

CJ doesn’t have to prove anything