Category Archives: UNC

Elections, General T&T, UNC

Autocracy, not democracy

By Raffique Shah
June 16, 2024

Raffique ShahWell before I thought about writing a column on the internal elections in the United National Congress, I deliberately decided that I will not focus on individual candidates but more on the process. In demo­cracies such as ours, there are always several interest groups that comprise the backbone of the parties which differ very little on critical issues such as the economic policies, crime and punishment, education and so on.
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corruption, General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Living to steal another day

By Raffique Shah
May 07, 2024

Raffique ShahHowever lofty the ideals they may shout from the rooftops, when you get down to base, when you reach the gutter where most of them reside, politics is not about ideals. It is about naked power.

Jean-Paul Sartre, French philosopher, wrote in his masterful introduction to Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth: They bring nothing new, they create nothing new, they simply regurgitate what their masters fill in their heads. Centuries after the great intellects introduced them to concepts such as democracy, you can hear them in the ex-colonies, now independent states, screaming as if they invented the words, “Government of the people, for the people and by the people”; “Liberty! Equality! Fraternity!”
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Elections, General T&T, PNM, Politics, THA, UNC

Election bell ringing

By Raffique Shah
March 12, 2024

Raffique ShahOnly a fool, a fanatical partisan politician, or an academic seeking to enter the profession of predicting election results would venture to predict the results of the next Trinidad and Tobago general election, due sometime over the next year or so. I have watched with interest how incumbent prime minister Dr Keith Rowley gave his first signal, when at one of his party’s meetings last week he spent some minutes on the topic and declared the election will be “the most serious you have ever taken part in”. I found that statement intriguing: every election is important.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics, UNC

A Quest for Truth

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 20, 2024

“A Quest for Truth” was delivered on Monday Night February 19, 2024, at the UNC’s forum on crime.

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThe Hon. Kamla Persad-Bissessar, leader of the UNC, other members of the panel, distinguished members of the UNC, ladies and gentlemen and those who are present at the Chaguanas Borough Council and those who are following on radio or television.

“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target that no one else can see.”

—Arthur Schopenhauer

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General T&T, UNC

Dem people

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 20, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeAfter my column “Rowley cannot fix the crime problem” appeared in the Sunday Express a few weeks ago, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Jearlean John, leader and deputy leader of the United National Congress (UNC), respectively, invited me to share my views on the crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago in its Anti-Crime Conversation that it was conducting. I accepted their kind invitation without reservation.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Protecting our historic legacy

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 11, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 2013 the people of Tacarigua waged a valiant struggle to prevent the UNC government from establishing a sporting complex on the Orange Grove Savannah, now called the Eddie Hart Savannah. The plan, developed by Sport Company of Trinidad and Tobago (SporTT), a limited liability the Ministry of Sport set up to act as its key implementation agency, called for building a 25-metre swimming pool, a cricket ground and football field, a pavilion, a 400-metre running track, and a car park.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

LGE: Political Veterans Last Hurrah

By Raffique Shah
July 31, 2023

Raffique ShahThe two main political parties in Trinidad and Tobago are taking the local government election, scheduled for two weeks tomorrow, very seriously. I expected the opposition United National Congress to maintain its momentum, which it has kept at a steady pace since it lost the 2015 general election, to keep the tempo going since it gained a few seats and the popular votes for its unrelenting pressure on the ruling People’s National Movement.
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Elections, General T&T, Opposition Party, Parliament, PNM, Property Tax, UNC

‘Informed’ voters will decide election

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By Raffique Shah
May 30, 2023

Raffique ShahNot for the first time in its 67-year history, the People’s National Movement goes into a local government election as the underdog. In 2019, as I recall it, the main opposition United National Congress, and some other parties with which it had forged alliances of sorts, seemed confident they would flog the PNM in the wake of a sluggish national economy, job cuts and its failure to secure support for local government reforms that intended to increase the powers of the municipal corporations.
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

Is Trinidad a real place?

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 20, 2023

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Sunday, Terrence Farrell, one of our premier public intellectuals, sought to explain why some people say that “Trinidad is not a real place”. Speaking of the mess in which Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Roger Gaspard found himself when he dismissed the Piarco airport corruption case, Farrell observed that it is these failures that prompt our frustration and “give weight to epithets such as ‘Trinidad is not a real place'” (Sunday Express, March 12).
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General T&T, PNM, Politics, UNC

A Wasteland of Hubris

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By Raffique Shah
March 20, 2023

Raffique ShahYou will think that a political party anywhere in the world that commands the lead stories in at least two national television newscasts per week; add for measure twenty-plus radio stations, most of which are ethnically weighted in favour of the party’s support base; three daily newspapers that go the extra mile to be fair to you, with even your lies making the cut, unlimited social media posts on the various sites, again in your favour… The party stages at least one public meeting per week that is also broadcast live on radio and at times, on television; flavor the above with, on balance unlimited parliament broadcasts that you control, if only by the volume, antics and other eye-catching tricks; sundry anti-government public meetings, often staged or influenced by the party’s activists that sometimes generate their own free media access, and so on…
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