Gail Alexan­der

Ru­mours cir­cu­lat­ing around the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day that Nizam Mo­hammed had been "axed" to re­sign as Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man, turned out to be mere­ly a part of ob­ser­vances that usu­al­ly mark oc­ca­sions such as yes­ter­day. April Fools' day. So far. Fol­low­ing Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards' meet­ing with the em­bat­tled PSC chief, Richards is yet to share the dis­cus­sions on the is­sue with the coun­try. But there have been hints that Mo­hammed may have to say soon if he will ac­cede to a re­quest for him to re­sign. The lat­est blow to the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion-in the form of the PSC chair­man-was clear­ly in the House air yes­ter­day.

"Nizam....!" for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning teased At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan who was dis­cours­ing on an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion. Man­ning re­ceived not even as much as a glance from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar. (Nor did PNM MP Don­na Cox who su­per­vised fel­low MPs in leader Kei­th Row­ley's ab­sence yes­ter­day.) For PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar, there was no sign yes­ter­day of the tow­er­ing yel­low African head­dress which she'd worn last Fri­day in ho­n­our of Shouter Bap­tists. (Or the more mod­est­ly sized pink head­tie she'd worn on Thurs­day's Bap­tist hol­i­day) But the ab­sence of hats may not nec­es­sar­i­ly have been be­cause un­easy lies the PM's head. Though well it might, even if she will be in Wash­ing­ton from to­day leav­ing Richards in charge of the Mo­hammed is­sue.

Still in the PSC chair af­ter Per­sad-Biss­esar's Gov­ern­ment dis­tanced it­self from him, Mo­hammed has been known to be con­sis­tent­ly forth­right in his long­stand­ing po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. Alarm bells might have gone off for the Gov­ern­ment when Mo­hammed first clashed with a po­lice of­fi­cer-and pulled his PSC rank-last year. His re­cent con­tro­ver­sial state­ments on East In­di­an to African "im­bal­ance" in the po­lice ser­vice how­ev­er-against which both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion firm­ly stand-could see bells tolling for his tenure as PSC head. It has been con­firmed from Mo­hammed's di­rec­tion that through­out the firestorm he had not heard from the Prime Min­is­ter, but has re­ceived urg­ings to quit via "grapevine".

While Mo­hammed is of the view that sta­tis­tics can sup­port his state­ments and that there are no tan­gi­ble grounds for his re­moval, the pop­ulist prin­ci­ple-a par­tic­u­lar­ly strong foun­da­tion pil­lar of the PP-and mount­ing pub­lic pres­sure over his state­ments, may de­mand move­ment. If not, the ques­tion aris­es, how ef­fi­cient­ly would he be able to con­tin­ue func­tion­ing with his fel­low PSC com­mis­sion­ers who dis­tanced them­selves from his po­si­tion and who were the tar­gets of his most re­cent crit­i­cisms yes­ter­day. And al­so, can he func­tion with the po­lice ser­vice in whose eyes Mo­hammed stands com­pro­mised and lack­ing in cred­i­bil­i­ty. If any­thing, the furore has proven that the race is­sue lies not very far be­neath the sur­face of T&T skin. How much the new ad­min­is­tra­tion's pres­ence has con­tributed to, or ex­ac­er­bat­ed this, is an­oth­er de­bate.

PP team di­vid­ed on is­sue........

Apart from ex­ter­nal ef­fects, the is­sue has al­so im­pact­ed on the rul­ing PP in­ter­nal­ly. In weigh­ing Mo­hammed's words, sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Chan­dresh Shar­ma and Roodal Mooni­lal, were dis­in­clined to­wards con­dem­na­tion or re­moval. Jus­tice Min­is­ter Her­bert Vol­ney al­so told TG he felt the po­lice ser­vice should be re­flec­tive of the coun­try's bal­ance. Vol­ney said he be­lieved the same should ap­ply in the Coast Guard, Fire Ser­vices and oth­er such di­vi­sions. "I don't think in a coun­try as di­verse as ours there should be an in­equity in the dis­tri­b­u­tion of po­si­tions," Vol­ney added.

He said he would de­fend his views and Mo­hammed had to de­fend his own. Their par­ty chair­man Jack Warn­er, how­ev­er, made his views against re­tain­ing Mo­hammed equal­ly clear. As did PP's TOP, COP and MSJ part­ners.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Ram­lo­gan, ac­cused by the po­lice ser­vice as­so­ci­a­tion of mouthing sim­i­lar "con­cerns" as Mo­hammed, has ap­peared to duck the is­sue. On Tues­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred queries on Ram­lo­gan's state­ments to him, re­porters hop­ing to grill him on the is­sue were turned back from a func­tion at his of­fice to which the me­dia were in­vit­ed. Nor has Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ment­ed on the po­si­tion she took, while in Op­po­si­tion, in Feb­ru­ary 2005 House de­bate on the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice when she had asked: "How can you sit six judges and not one is of In­di­an ori­gin?" Per­sad-Bisses­sar had ques­tioned how that sit­u­a­tion "could be" when she said half of the pop­u­la­tion is of In­di­an ori­gin.

Break­ing her si­lence on the Mo­hammed is­sue ear­li­er this week, the dis­tance which Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­ments put be­tween her ad­min­is­tra­tion and Mo­hammed, how­ev­er, sig­nalled full tilt Gov­ern­ment mode. The alarum raised by Mo­hammed's con­cerns in the po­lice ser­vice as op­posed to the firestorm re­gard­ing racism which it ig­nit­ed, would have been a tough po­si­tion for the In­do-based PP ad­min­is­tra­tion to broach. With the for­mer po­si­tion (ob­vi­ous­ly) be­ing shared by some PP mem­bers and the po­lit­i­cal chal­lenges stem­ming (ob­vi­ous­ly) from the lat­ter, the Gov­ern­ment would had to have sac­ri­ficed any par­ti­san stance no mat­ter its po­lit­i­cal base. "Na­tion­al in­ter­est" will serve as the ba­sis for calls for his re­moval. But iron­i­cal­ly, it has al­so been cit­ed as the ba­sis for Mo­hammed's con­cerns.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not re­vealed con­tent of her dis­cus­sion with Richards, in­di­cat­ing the mat­ter is square­ly in his hands and any de­ci­sion would be his, nat­u­ral­ly ab­solv­ing her of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for any en­su­ing re­sult. An OPM spokesman con­firmed that the Mo­hammed is­sue was dis­cussed on Mon­day night by a cau­cus of front­line min­is­ters fol­low­ing which Per­sad-Bisses­sar met the Pres­i­dent.

The spokesman said Gov­ern­ment has been re­luc­tant to fire, make changes or reshuf­fle af­ter on­ly 11 months of of­fice, lest it be per­ceived as weak. They added that Mo­hammed could have man­aged the sit­u­a­tion with­in 24 hours of its oc­cur­rence last week by call­ing a brief­ing to clar­i­fy his state­ments, pro­duce sup­port­ing ev­i­dence and make it clear he was not deal­ing in racist mode but in mat­ter of fact. But they said the PSC head did not act.

Sham lead­er­ship-Bas

While the episode could mark the end of Mo­hammed's po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, it is yet an­oth­er for the PP's grow­ing "man­age­ment"record. De­spite meet­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly, her men­tor, Bas­deo Pan­day says the Gov­ern­ment has had so many ".....stum­blings, bum­blings, fum­blings since as­sum­ing of­fice, it's a shame." "There's no plan... we're see­ing the re­sults of putting square pegs in round holes."

Pan­day says PP's lack of lead­er­ship is at the heart of the is­sue. He added: "A leader would have called on every­one to for­mu­late a plan in the first two weeks of of­fice. Lead­er­ship is the is­sue here and the on­ly sub­sti­tute is pap­py show, trav­el­ling and go­ing from cos­tume to cos­tume-Car­ni­val to Shouter Bap­tist day. All I see of lead­er­ship is a sham-no sub­stance.

Pan­day added, "They might be able to stum­ble through like this for the next four years, but T&T will de­te­ri­o­rate and there are lessons to be learned from in­ter­na­tion­al events. Even­tu­al­ly peo­ple will rise up and de­mand they per­form. What is sav­ing the Gov­ern­ment is that the PNM's cur­rent form is worse."

Jack works with PNM PoS North

With the Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader both over­seas as the Mo­hammed is­sue peaks, Warn­er, now act­ing PM, ap­peared to at­tempt­ing to bridge an­oth­er type of po­lit­i­cal gap on Wednes­day when he toured Port-of-Spain North with PNM MP Pat McIn­tosh. Pri­or to yes­ter­day's House, Warn­er and McIn­tosh hug­ging, talked an­i­mat­ed­ly with PP's Rudy In­dars­ingh. Warn­er said the tour of the PNM seat to as­sess prob­lems was his first in a PNM area. "I was made to feel so at home in Bel­mont and Cas­cade," he told TG. Warn­er's son Daryan has been an ac­tive pa­tron of PNM's PoS North unit since last year. How­ev­er, he said he in­tends to vis­it all seats. "I've nev­er stopped go­ing walk­a­bout since elec­tions," he added.

With Gov­ern­ment on the back­foot re­gard­ing the Mo­hammed is­sue, the Op­po­si­tion House pres­ence was de­void of its lead­ers yes­ter­day with MPs Cox and Colm Im­bert hold­ing the fort.

The Mo­hammed is­sue gave the PNM on Tues­day-through Sen­a­tor Ter­rence Deyals­ingh-an op­por­tu­ni­ty to toss the UNC's words against the for­mer PNM Gov­ern­ment back in what some be­lieve to be an ac­cu­rate de­scrip­tion of the Gov­ern­ment's tenure. ".....'Stum­bling from self- in­flict­ed cri­sis to self-in­flict­ed cri­sis,'" Deyals­ingh chas­tised PP Sen­a­tors. The Mo­hammed mat­ter has been a boost­er shot for the Op­po­si­tion po­lit­i­cal stocks, more specif­i­cal­ly leader Row­ley's. In­deed top PNM of­fi­cials said Thurs­day that the is­sue was the best op­por­tu­ni­ty in al­most 40 years for the PNM to dis­cuss the race is­sue ob­jec­tive­ly. (And drum up sup­port over­all in the face of Gov­ern­ment's fal­ter­ing stocks on this par­tic­u­lar is­sue.)

But though Row­ley may be per­ceived to have been vin­di­cat­ed on the con­cerns he voiced about Mo­hammed, his Mi­a­mi mis­sion has tak­en him off the scene. Still Row­ley's in­ter­ven­tion on the is­sue at Par­lia­men­tary lev­el may not be suf­fi­cient ac­tion for some PN­Mites. The par­ty's new chair­man and PRO Fran­klln Khan and Faris-Al Rawi came in for some flack on PNM In­ter­net sites for the par­ty's low pro­file on the mat­ter. "Where are you par­ty chair­man and PRO?" pro­claimed one of 30-plus com­ments. Pri­or to par­ty elec­tions Row­ley had said each ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber would be seen as a leader in his own right and would to be pre­pared to speak on poli­cies, is­sues and pro­grammes.

You know you've been made out when...

• You in­sist on keep­ing your chair­man­ship...while your one­time le­gal ad­vis­er pub­licly ad­vis­es you to ride out.

• PP back­bencher Jairam Seemu­n­gal was caught sig­nalling dur­ing yes­ter­day's House to Speak­er Wade Mark about PNM MPs Patrick Man­ning, Paula Gopee-Scoon and Ali­cia Hospedales.

• Ges­tic­u­lat­ing to Mark, Seemu­n­gal ap­peared to in­di­cate that their talk­ing was af­fect­ing (his hear­ing of) AG Ram­lo­gan's con­tri­bu­tion. Mark oblig­ed with a warn­ing to the three MPs.

• PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds good na­tured­ly teased PP Sen­a­tor Nan Ram­goolam in Tues­day's Sen­ate about the "com­pa­ny she keeps....ac­cord­ing to Ben­jai-they keep bad com­pa­ny."

• ....Ei­ther Hinds, a for­mer po­lice­man, might have in­tel that in­formed his quip. Or he got the goods on Ram­goolam from Ben­jai.

• PNM Sen­a­tor Ter­rence Deyals­ingh ad­vo­cat­ed-in Tues­day's Sen­ate-that In­di­an del­i­ca­cies and the req­ui­site red soft drink should be en­shrined in the law.

• ...And no­body on the Gov­ern­ment side rushed to say the plan is al­ready in train.

• PNM deputy leader Joan Yuille Williams cleared the way to ush­er Franklin Khan in­to the re­cent PNM con­ven­tion at Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion cen­tre-five hours be­fore the elec­tion was held and re­sults de­clared Khan as par­ty chair­man.

• ...And when Khan fol­lowed par­ty leader Kei­th Row­ley in­to the con­ven­tion to rous­ing ap­plause. Five hours be­fore he was elect­ed chair­man.

• PNM par­ty lead­ers pro­claim the Op­po­si­tion has moved from re­flec­tion to resur­gence and re­new­al.....

• ...but the par­ty's 43rd par­ty con­ven­tion starts off with the big screen tele­vi­sion mon­i­tor on the wall of the Ch­aguara­mas Con­ven­tion Cen­tre falling down with a big bang.

• A week af­ter PNM's con­ven­tion, an In­ter­net Face­book site emerged lob­by­ing "Amery Browne for Prime Min­is­ter."