A member of the public contributing to the discourses of a beleaguered Prime Minister has noted: Last week it was war with the contractors. This week the conflict is with drug dealers. Who will it be next week and the weeks leading up to the local government (perhaps even general election) polls? On the fight of this week and Prime Minister Manning's contentions about drug dealers going after him, it is sufficient to note that the drug dealers have been successfully pursuing their trade for the last couple decades, uncaring really about what governments do or don't do. Is it that the fear now being demonstrated by the drug dealers, according to the Prime Minister, is a result of the television ad of the recently acquired fast patrol boats?
Countries such as the USA, Britain and other far more resourced states have discovered that, notwithstanding their assembled armada, drug dealers continue their scourge undeterred. Why are they to be put off by the assemblage of a few vessels and technological gadgetry in the hands of a regime that has failed miserably to stem the drug trade and crime over nearly a decade? But the paranoia and obsession with his sense of self-importance and his ability to sell anything to the national community goes deeper. Does Prime Minister Manning really believe that as a means of diverting attention away from the inadequacies of his government on a range of issues including lack of transparency, unsuccessful action against organised crime, financial waste and flawed economic decisions such as hosting billion-dollar conferences he could simply mount a platform, pick out "enemies" and parade against them to silence the dissatisfaction people have with him and his Government? If he does, he is really living an illusion.
Commentators who have likened Mr Manning and Mr Panday to two sides to the same coin may have been right. In the midst of his Attorney General's fight with Chief Justice Michael de la Bastide for administrative control of the judiciary, which the honourable CJ interpreted to be an attempt to get control of that arm of government, then Prime Minister Panday railed against one and all. The said "drug dealers" came in for a bashing; also the media, who were said to be in league with an unknown mafia; and the judges too got a broadside from the then Prime Minister. "No one who attacked my Government would remain unscathed," snarled Mr Panday. Prime Minister Manning seems to have adopted the strategy with minor variations. Then there is his continuing boasts about knowing who the drug dealers are, who "Mr Big" is, all of this knowledge without being able to use the security apparatus of the State to even bring them to court. Instead of being a boost to the capability of the Government, the empty rhetoric serves as an indictment against the Prime Minister's administration.
It seems clear that Prime Minister Manning is suffering from an attack of a political virus that afflicts a leader who has inevitably to call an election but is deadly afraid of the electorate. Far more productive was the quiet commitment by Mr Manning's senior minister, Lenny Saith, to revise and implement legislation to form a policy for procurement in the public sector. Notwithstanding the fact that the white paper on procurement has been left to gather dust for five years while Udecott was allowed to play with billions of dollars, this newspaper is suggesting to Prime Minister Manning that taking such constructive action would be far more productive than the Monday night madness of constructing enemies out of thin air.