Gail Alexan­der

Per­haps fit­ting­ly for the up­com­ing dis­play of pre­dom­i­nant­ly fe­male mas­quer­aders of every va-ri­a­tion, Car­ni­val Tues­day is al­so In­ter­na­tion­al Women's Day. And per­haps just as prophet­i­cal­ly (he prob­a­bly hoped), PP House leader Roodal Mooni­lal had made a point of invit­ing Op­po­si­tion PNM MPs to a Car­ni­val stick-fight­ing com­pe­ti­tion in his con- stituen­cy on Thurs­day gone. Name of that event was "Buss-head in Debe." It re­mains to un­fold if-as the Gov­ern­ment has pre­dict­ed-such cra­nial frac­ture will be ap­plied to the PNM's body politic as a re­sult of Mon­day's fail­ure of the death penal­ty bill.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, how­ev­er, did his ver­bal best to try and ex­pe­dite the process when the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives met to con­clude de­bate of the bill on Mon­day. It was not for noth­ing that Ram­lo­gan de­scribed the de­bate as a "po­lit­i­cal gayelle." Be­cause the Car­ni­val bac­cha­nal theme took over apt­ly from there. Whether it was Ram­lo­gan's vig­or­ous ver­bal "win­ing" on the PNM, he did in­deed "Mash up (mash up) every­thing." Un­con­vinced, PNM wined to the side of the bill, lead­ing to Gov­ern­ment ac­cu­sa­tions that the Op­po­si­tion was (in a word) "Wot­less." The con­sti­tu­tion­al en­trench­ment of the penal­ty was viewed by Gov­ern­ment as lend­ing "Ad­van­tage" to the bill.

The Op­po­si­tion though, plead­ing Tri­nis' in­ter­est, felt it was not just a "Town T'ing," but it was def­i­nite­ly not the done thing and called for Gov­ern­ment to "Cool It Down." The bill there­fore had the lon-gevi­ty of the mi­nor hits that rode the air­waves for the Car­ni­val sea­son, end­ing up as a waste of par­lia­men­tary time. That is, save for the in­tel each side gleaned from de­bate on the oth­er's po­lit­i­cal weak points and the po­lit­i­cal plus points each hope they gained. With Gov­ern­ment left hang­ing on the is­sue by the PNM, his­to­ry will al­so show that both sides now ac­cuse each oth­er of set­ting the oth­er up with the in­ten­tion of hav­ing the bill fail.

Al­so, that the bill may be re­turned in an­oth­er ses­sion. And the Op­po­si­tion may be "open" to it. The tal­ly on who will ac­tu­al­ly ob­tain points for their re­spec­tive ac­tion start­ed tick­ing min­utes af­ter the bill's de­feat

But the score is prob­a­bly even. And where crime-curb­ing is con­cerned, a big fat ze­ro re­mains. The three days of de­bate on the bill had been lack­lus­tre (over­all) for some­thing tout­ed as Gov­ern­ment's main an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion. Ap­peal turned to in­sult and of­fer met re­jec­tion in the last ses­sion whose stormi­ness sur­pris­ing­ly did not in­volve much in­ter- ven­tion by House Speak­er Wade Mark. Leav­ing MPs to rum­ble and roar to their heart's con­tent.

Gov­ern­ment, which boast­ed of mak­ing huge con­ces­sions to the PNM on the bill, may be on the spot about why it could not have been with­drawn and re­for­mat­ted. PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not present Gov­ern­ment's ar­gu­ment on the bill since she had Gov­ern­ment's chief le­gal of­fi­cer for that- Ram­lo­gan-plus PP's oth­er le­gal ex­perts. How­ev­er, PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley-whose Low­er House team is light on le­gal tal­ent-did not lead PNM in de­bate of this bill, which was the biggest piece of leg­is­la­tion the 10th Par­lia­ment has ex­am­ined. Still, Row­ley ap­peared ready to take the helm in com­ment­ing on the bill be­fore fi­nal de­bate and af­ter it end­ed.

MP Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald is the Op­po­si­tion's most sea­soned le­gal ex­pert in the House and then a civ­il one, lack­ing crim­i­nal law ex­pe­ri­ence. Had Row­ley's cre­den­tials as PNM leader been ful­ly es­tab­lished, ac­cept­ed and cred­i­bly dis­played over a length of time, an­oth­er PNM team leader for this bill may have been tak­en for grant­ed. But while Mc­Don­ald's 65-page ar­gu­ment was laud­ed by PP MPs, Row­ley's de­ci­sion to opt out of de­bate may leave him open to queries about his abil­i­ty for play­ing King Sailor mas and han­dling po­lit­i­cal pow­der. Row­ley's PNM al­so stands the risk of be­ing per­ceived as do­ing in Op­po­si­tion what the UNC was ac­cused of do­ing while there pre­vi­ous­ly.

And of do­ing what some PNM-ites be­lieve Row­ley did best when he was a PNM back­bencher. Op­pos­ing. Whether or not the PNM fell in­to any PP "trap," with­in hours of Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's call to send a mes­sage to the PNM on its ac­tion, PP's In­ter­net group-ies and a cou­ple con­stituen­cies were in ac­tion. The piece de re­sis­tance-though overkill-was the PM's poignant "Let­ter to Daniel (Guer­ra)."

The PNM's abil­i­ty to deal with an is­sue as emo­tive as this, there­fore, is still to un­fold. PN­Mites' the­o­ry that it may blow over post-Car­ni­val stands a slim chance con­sid­er­ing Gov­ern­ment will hard­ly let any­one for­get the Op­po­si­tion's stance on this bill every time crime spikes and the Gov­ern­ment falls un­der pres­sure.

PN­Mites such as Colm Im­bert and ex-leader Patrick Man­ning have been de­fend­ing PNM's po­si­tion on Face­book. Next test for Gov­ern­ment is the up­com­ing na­tion­al fete in the face of se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, in­clud­ing promised PSA protest. (Some PN­Mites feel vin­di­cat­ed about Man­ning's de­ci­sion against plac­ing the Labour Min­istry near the Hy­att as the PP has done. They said Man­ning felt the five-star ho­tel's rep­u­ta­tion-and pos­si­bly more-could have been dam­aged if demon­stra­tions against the min­istry oc­curred near­by, as hap­pened with PSA on Thurs­day.)Hope­ful­ly next rounds for the death penal­ty bill will in­volve suf­fi­cient­ly deep-cred­i­ble-pub­lic in­put and analy­sis to avoid re­peat of the same old "tunes" from Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion.

PNM elec­tions boils post-Car­ni­val

PP MP Anil Roberts didn't let the Op­po­si­tion PNM for­get the fact that it had failed this year to pull off its an­nu­al "So­ca in the Bal­isi­er" fete for the first time in years. Due to lack of spon­sors, the PNM can­celled the fete. In Tues­day's Sen­ate, Roberts told PNM's Pen­ny Beck­les that he'd been seek­ing tick­ets for the bal­isi­er fete, couldn't find any and was will­ing to buy the "$45" tick­et. PNM of­fi­cials said or­gan­i­sa­tion of the event start­ed too late. There is con­cern in PNM cir­cles that non-stag­ing of the fete may tele­graph a neg­a­tive mes­sage about the state of the par­ty's ca­pa­bil­i­ties un­der new lead­er­ship. The con­cerns may be jus­ti­fied since the PNM may have been able to es­cape with not stag­ing the fete if it had been soon af­ter its elec­tion de­feat.

How­ev­er-as some PN­Mites say -it's now 10 months af­ter the de­feat and the par­ty should have shown signs of an or­gan­i­sa­tion­al come­back in var­i­ous ar­eas, though it ap­pears the par­ty is wait­ing the new ex­ec­u­tive, yet to be elect­ed. De­spite con­cerns about at­ten­dance-since the fete was the same night as the Mon­tano con­cert-cer­tain PNM of­fi­cials felt that hold­ing the fete "would have at least sig­nalled the par­ty is still alive." PN­Mites are prep­ping for the post-Car­ni­val two-week sprint of cam­paign­ing lead­ing up to their March 20 con­ven­tion. Im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter Car­ni­val, the PNM moves in­to high gear with two pre-con­ven­tion events next week Sat­ur­day and Sun­day. A spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil will be held next week Sat­ur­day to con­firm con­ven­tion res­o­lu­tions. Next week Sun­day, the par­ty will be at City Hall, Port-of-Spain, where the 29 nom­i­nees for the 15 posts will be in­ter­viewed by del­e­gates.

And now: Bas the TV star

Ex-PM Bas­deo Pan­day is con­clud­ing talks with two TV sta­tions on host­ing a talk show which-if suc­cess­ful-could boost his pro­file and stocks. Pan­day, wear­ing dark glass­es fol­low­ing reti­na surgery, said one eye has healed and the oth­er is heal­ing. He quipped: "But what the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing is so glar­ing, I on­ly need one eye to see it..." So much for pre­view of his show.

Where d politi­cians at Mon­day, Tues­day

The Prime Min­is­ter and some of her team are ex­pect­ed at the Grand Stand view­ing mas on Tues­day, ac­cord­ing to the OPM. Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley has played sailor mas with All Stars on Tues­day. But PNM's Ash­ton Ford was un­able to con-firm if Row­ley is do­ing so this year. In COP's J'Ou­vert band, COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an is play­ing "Cap­tain of the Think­ing Ship" -a pun on Gyp­sy's 1986 Sink­ing (PNM) Ship. COP's De­siree Jak in­di­cat­ed the band in­cludes Patrick Wat­son, MP Lin­coln Dou­glas, Clyde Weath­er-head and Joseph Toney. COP's Hulsie Bhag­gan said she's over­seas. Al­so out are COP depu-ties Roberts May­ers and Wendy Lee Yuen, the lat­ter play­ing Ari­ma J'Ou­vert.

Health Min­is­ter Therese Bap-tiste-Cor­nelis will be in Tri­ni Rev­el-lers, a spokesman said. Min­is­ter Win­ston Pe­ters will be in the Peo­ple's Band, of­fi­cials added. MP Anil Roberts said he may al­so be in that band. PP's Tim Gopeesingh is de­cid­ing be­tween Harts or Yu­ma, he said. OPM aides and UNC ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials will be in Tribe. PP MP Roodal Mooni­lal fore-goes cos­tume this year. On Mon-day he will be in south Trinidad, he said. To­ba­go West MP Del­mon Bak­er will be in his con­stituen­cy. Works Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er is in his con­stituen­cy on Mon­day and Tues­day .

PNM MP Amery Browne will be in Tribe's Bliss, along with Lau­rel Leza­ma, Jer­ry Narace, Con­rad Enill and oth­er PNM of­fi­cials, Narace said. Ex-PM Man­ning will be in his con­stituen­cy on Mon­day, it was con­firmed. Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald will be at Pic-cadil­ly Greens on Tues­day, spec­ta-ting. PNM's Im­bert said he will be "on the road." Deputy House Speak­er Fuad Khan will be over­seas, he con-firmed.

...With an­oth­er one for the road

• Seems the PM isn't fazed by boos.

• Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar would have to be a tough cook­ie to have gone in­to the crowd to meet peo­ple af­ter news of her ar­rival at last Sat­ur­day's Skin­ner Park Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta show was greet­ed with boos.

•...But those in the crowd may have been too boozed to both­er that she wasn't both­ered by the boos.

• The po­lit­i­cal­ly cu­ri­ous may al­so won­der if PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley will don an amend­ed ver­sion of his usu­al sailor mas to tru­ly be "King Sailor" this year, com­plete with larg­er cap­tain's stripes now that he's in charge of the PNM boat.

• The Op­po­si­tion boat, the Gov­ern­ment flag­ship and their re­spec­tive crews can look for­ward to por­tray­als. Most­ly in Mon­day's ole mas event.

• You know it's Car­ni­val when so­ca su­per-star Machel Mon­tano makes it in­to Sen­ate de­bate twice in one ses­sion.

• On Tues­day, first men­tion came from PP MP Anil Roberts who did a sur­pris­ing­ly con­vinc­ing im­pres­sion of Mon­tano while re­ply­ing to a query from PNM's Pen­ny Beck­les.

• Roberts end­ed by telling Beck­les in a husky growl: "...And in the words of Machel Mon­tano, 'Call me any time you want....'"

• AG Ram­lo­gan may or may not have giv­en Mon­tano an "ad­van­tage" when the AG praised Mon­tano for the ex­am­ple he set in treat­ing el­ders by laud­ing the Mighty Spar­row and Ca­lyp­so Rose re­cent­ly.

• Ram­lo­gan's view-that he wouldn't be sur­prised if Mon­tano wins the $2m So­ca Monarch prize-may be an un­nec­es­sary "ad­van­tage" for the su­per­star.

• ...Who may al­ready be in Gov­ern­ment's good books with his Ad­van­tage ca­lyp­so which urges mas­quer­aders to "praise the Gov­ern­ment"for the Sa­van­nah stage.

• ...Score: two days for the PP with that tune. Maybe.

• ...PNM: hang­ing in the bal­ance. Pos­si­bly.