The UNC led PP has done more in its short-term than PNM has ever done for the people of T&T, however, attitude goes a long way in the way people see you.Like ex-PM Panday, so too PM Kamla, believing that because the Partnership got so many seats its reign would be for a long time, she and others forgot how and who made the reign possible.
Would she have become leader of the UNC without Jack Warner, and thus the PM? No. Whose money and influence helped to finance the campaigns? No question was ever made of that, but Jack, a straight-forward man, proclaimed that he would not allow graft and fraud by anyone in the party or government.
That did not fit right with some, since he was loved by many and he worked hard for the party, sleeping only a few hours. That was a roadblock to some, so he had to be stopped, firstly by removing the PURE programme, then splitting his ministry, then putting him to head a tough ministry. Yet he did not complain as he had the UNC in his blood.
FIFA rumours were nothing new and there have been nothing found irregular in order to find him guilty, yet PM Kamla decided to strip him based only on rumours, or so she said. Of course that was not the real reason.All the party groups in Chaguanas West wanted him as their candidate yet someone else was put up. Even then he still remained a devoted party man, promising to campaign with her in the East/West corridor.
He formed a new party but said that it would become part of the Partnership that was rejected. In the campaign all of those who Jack helped to win in their constituencies poured scorn on him as if he was a leper or some outcast.
There are some adages worth remembering which mean the same: don't curse river stone after you cross the river; don't damn (curse) the bridge after you cross and; remember those you meet on the way up as you will meet them on your way down. All of these adages PM Kamla et al forgot. My father and others said that you can do 99 good but just do one bad and that one will be remembered always.
Herbert Volney was made a scapegoat, but someone within the Cabinet had to have tipped off Ish and Ferguson. They themselves could have waited for a while, the Act is a good one, as trials take way too long, wasting time and money. Justice delayed is justice denied. If the Act was so flawed, with all of the lawyers in the Parliament why was it allowed to pass?Unless PM Kamla et al use the remaining months in office to rectify its mistakes then it will be another one-term government. They will have to eat crow.
The least said about the COP the better. It is batting out of its league. Enough said.
Clermont Andrews,
via e-mail