Gail Alexan­der

Some are con­fronting im­me­di­ate chal­lenges in new min­istries. Oth­ers are grap­pling with the same is­sues they've been stuck with since last year. But MPs seemed not to be miss­ing the par­lia­men­tary sit­tings all that much. Fac­ing in­dus­tri­al, health and crime is­sues, the suc­cess which some of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's pro­pos­als met with re­gion­al­ly ear­li­er in the week is yet to be em­u­lat­ed lo­cal­ly. T&T again fea­tured in the spot­light at the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed Cari­com sum­mit in St Kitts, which be­gan with an in­sis­tent call for lead­er­ship from the re­gion­al "Big Four"-T&T, Ja­maica, Guyana, Bar­ba­dos. The lob­by was a giv­en, fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's 2010 sum­mit at­ten­dance where she put Cari­com on no­tice that T&T's days as an "ATM card" had end­ed. The sub­se­quent year-and cer­tain re­spons­es-how­ev­er has seen Gov­ern­ment grow in­to its Cari­com role. Per­sad-Bisses­sar's in­tent to con­sol­i­date re­gion­al ties was de­clared from the minute she land­ed in St Kitts via an Air Ja­maica plane-part of the CAL/AJ ar-range­ment. Gift­ing Cari­com on its 38th birth­day with a hand­ful of pro­pos­als, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­in­forced T&T's com­mit­ment to re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion.

With in­ter­est in plans on sea trans­port and an en­er­gy pipeline, T&T's com­mit­ment to Cari­com will like­ly con­tin­ue in ev­i­dence since T&T will be the chair­man and host of Cari­com's 2013 sum­mit. T&T's more im­me­di­ate re­gion­al test, how­ev­er, lies with the sim­mer­ing RED­jet is­sue in which more states are lin­ing up on the side of the new air­line. Lo­cal­ly, the "fi­nal seg­ment" of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re­align­ment of her Gov­ern­ment fell in­to place with last Sun­day's COP elec­tion of Prakash Ra­mad­har as leader-a sit­u­a­tion which will like­ly strength­en COP's links with the ma­jor­i­ty UNC part­ner. Plan­ning Min­is­ter Bhoe Tewarie's role as a me­di­a­tor of sorts to as­sist in de­fus­ing the cur­rent unions' is­sue has made for a high­er pro­file for the Plan­ning Min­istry, whose min­is­ters-in­clud­ing PP's Mary King-have tra­di­tion­al­ly been low-pro­file. Per­haps the Cab­i­net's most sea­soned over­all pro­fes­sion­al in acad­e­mia, pol­i­tics and busi­ness, Tewarie's "trou­bleshoot­er" role is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue in is­sues af­fect­ing oth­er sec­tors and give new mean­ing to the term "Plan­ning Min­istry." By the next is­sue of the Gov­ern­ment gazette, an­nounce­ment will be made of the shift of the URP from MSJ leader Er­rol McLeod's Labour port­fo­lio to the Min­istries of the Peo­ple and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment (held by UNC MPs). New post­ings of To­ba­go-af­fil­i­at­ed mem­bers have set the stage for Gov­ern­ment to utilise these re­sources to­wards THA's 2013 elec­tion stretch. How ef­fec­tive arrange­ments will be, will show up in what­ev­er progress var­i­ous sec­tors make in their re­spec­tive is­sues.

Ra­mad­har mod­ule for a de­creas­ing COP

With­in days of as­sum­ing COP lead­er­ship, Ra­mad­har was "pro­mot­ed"-to act as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al while Anand Ram­lo­gan is over­seas for three weeks. Both south­ern at­tor­neys, Ra­mad­har and Per­sad-Bisses­sar were the first to ap­pear on a joint plat­form in 2008 herald­ing the start of moves to­wards a coali-tion. At the time Ra­mad­har hailed her as a long­stand­ing close friend akin to fam­i­ly. To­geth­er they spear­head­ed the "Axe the Tax" plat­form and each was seen as a bridge to uni­ty. The COP's links with the Part­ner­ship may al­so be strength­ened by Ra­mad­har's choice of COP gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Ni­rad Tewarie, son of Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Tewarie. Hav­ing passed the test with­in his own par­ty, Ra­mad­har will now be test­ed on his strength and ca­pa­bil­i­ty not on­ly on be­half of COP, but al­so of coun­try, around the Part­ner­ship ta­ble. Af­ter hav­ing sat-most­ly silent -as a PP back­bencher for the first year, Ra­mad­har is ex­pect­ed to be more vo­cal in the next par­lia-men­tary term, to help ful­fil his promise of giv­ing COP a larg­er role.

It is un­der­stood Ra­mad­har may be shift­ed to a front bench seat or the equiv­a­lent of this ac­cord­ing to seat­ing arrange­ments in the new par­lia­men­tary cham­ber at the IFC Tow­er, where Par­lia­ment will be tem­porar­i­ly housed for the next cou­ple years. (The cham­ber is yet to be put to­geth­er and out­fit­ted in the des­ig­nat­ed space. Staff has not yet be­gun to move in­to the wa­ter­front com­plex, it was con­firmed Thurs­day.) Ex-COP deputy lead­ers Robert May­ers and Wendy Lee Yuen are no longer in the spot­light-a sit­u­a­tion which some UNC je­fes may be re­lieved about where May­ers is con­cerned, fol­low­ing his con­sis­tent sharp cri­tiquing of the Part­ner­ship dur­ing his tenure. But lead­er­ship con­tender Ver­non de Li­ma will still have a say in mat­ters since, as COP vice chair­man, he con­tin­ues work in COP's ex­ec­u­tive. It re­mains to be seen how the team will meld with the new lead­er­ship's five-point plan (in­volv­ing par­ty and Part­ner­ship struc­ture, COP pol­i­cy agen­da and get­ting it on Gov­ern­ment's list) since some did not sup­port Ra­mad­har for lead­er­ship. Mem­bers are look­ing to to­mor­row's COP Coun­cil to hear what di­rec­tion Ra­mad­har will take the par­ty fol­low­ing his warn­ing of "tur­bu­lent wa­ters" ahead-sig­nalling his in­ten­tion to seek Part­ner­ship bal­ance with­in a cer­tain or­der where his own mem­bers are con­cerned.

Ra­mad­har's will al­so be a two-fold chal­lenge.

Apart from seek­ing COP's in­ter­est in­side Cab­i­net, he will need to shore it up out­side since the elec­tion's re­sults have sent neg­a­tive sig­nals. Ac­cord­ing to COP's elec­tion com­mis­sion, out of COP's 40,000 reg­is­tered vot­ers, on­ly 5,200 vot­ed last Sun­day. Ra­mad­har won 3,200 votes with Anil Roberts earn­ing mere­ly over 1,000, Ver­non De Li­ma got 700 plus and Nali­ni Di­al, less than100. The num­bers are a star­tling rev­e­la­tion about in­ter­est in the COP and the where­abouts of its mem­bers. Did they all re­turn to the UNC fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rise to of­fice? Does the COP ex­ist on­ly as some ONR/NAR el­e­ments? Did none of the can­di­dates ap­peal to mem­bers? How vi­able a force is COP with such num­bers? Can it make the dif­fer­ence and play a lead­ing role with such sup­port? And will it com­pro­mise Ra­mad­har's ef­forts to achieve this? The num­bers sug­gest the par­ty re­quires a lot of work. How Ra­mad­har will steer it along that path-or whether it may end up go­ing in an­oth­er di­rec­tion-re­mains to play out.

Kei­th puts the ball in Patos' court

Ra­mad­har's an­swers dur­ing the cam­paign re­gard­ing links with the Op­po­si­tion PNM in­di­cat­ed he was not in favour of any coali­tion tie there; rather PN­Mites would have to join the COP as the dom­i­nant en­ti­ty.

It may not have been the re­ply PNM chair­man Franklin Khan would have liked af­ter he said PNM need­ed to look to links with oth­er par­ties like the COP. Now that Ra­mad­har is leader, PNM's Khan is not hold­ing his par­ty's breath to wait for COP to put out a hand. Khan said: "PNM join­ing the COP is like a sar­dine eat­ing the shark...there are two ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ties in T&T-PNM and UNC. The COP has emerged as a third force of some sub­stance, they have to try to de­fine their role. "But we're say­ing we'd like COP mem­bers, es­pe­cial­ly those for­mer PN­Mites-to re­turn to PNM. We're re­brand­ing, re­build­ing and it's ob­vi­ous there are COP mem­bers who are un­hap­py with the coali­tion and we're avail­able to speak to them as a op­tion." COP mem­bers how­ev­er will have to hedge be­tween PNM's is­sues and those in the Part­ner­ship.

Mon­day's PNM meet­ing in San Fer­nan­do East did not bring the past and present lead­er­ships clos­er to­geth­er in any sig­nif­i­cant way, de­spite the ob­vi­ous at­tempt-via the set­ting-to achieve that im­age.

It was the sec­ond since their Jan­u­ary Hug-Up Ac­cord fol­low­ing which no fur­ther re­la­tion­ship "heights" were achieved. The sit­u­a­tion ac­tu­al­ly in­ten­si­fied fol­low­ing dis­agree­ments re­gard­ing Man­ning's par­lia­men­tary mo­tion re­cent­ly, his sus­pen­sion and walk­a­bout. Mon­day's meet­ing there­fore turned in­to an un­ex­pect­ed "de­bate" with each gen­tle­man's re­spec­tive po­si­tion on in­ter­nal mat­ters. It ap­peared to de­vel­op in­to the "one-on-one" meet­ing which chair­man Khan had re­cent­ly said the lead­er­ship want­ed to have with Man­ning. Ex­cept in pub­lic. Man­ning's com­ments-jus­ti­fy­ing his low pro­file-may have opened the door to Row­ley's sub­se­quent ex­pla­na­tion of his own po­si­tion re­in­forc­ing his in­di­vid­u­al­i­ty and adding an in­di­rect warn­ing to lead­er­ship "re­place­ments" who may be lurk­ing in the wings. Row­ley's state­ment that Man­ning had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to use his wealth of ex­per­tise for good or evil and his view that all PNM can­nons should be "fir­ing" next par­lia­men­tary ses­sion has pub­licly chal­lenged Man­ning to make a pos­i­tive dif­fer­ence, put him on the spot and land­ed the po­lit­i­cal ball in his court.

The meet­ing left some PN­Mites won­der­ing if ir­rec­on­cil­able dif­fer­ences ex­ist. Whether ei­ther of the two men have tak­en a re­cent sug­ges­tion by THA leader Orville Lon­don to em­ploy in­tro­spec­tion has not been ev­i­denced. The "talk" which has en­sued has on­ly left PN­Mites un­easy, sev­er­al said yes­ter­day.

To­mor­row Row­ley will guest on Lon­don's To­ba­go turf where he launch­es re­ply fire to Gov­ern­ment's re­cent at­tack on the THA and its "ear­ly" start of the THA cam­paign. It was con­firmed Man­ning will not at­tend the month-end Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary Con­fer­ence in Lon­don since Row­ley will be go­ing to rep­re­sent T&T's in­ter­est (along with Gov­ern-ment). Man­ning said in Par­lia­ment in April that he would at­tend and raise the is­sue of le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee mat­ters. But a spokesman says Man­ning has shelved his at­ten­dance since he did not wish to cre­ate an "in­ter­na­tion­al" in­ci­dent. Row­ley is on record as dis­agree­ing with the need for le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion for such com­mit­tee mat­ters.

T&T Po­lit­i­cal Dic­tio­nary

"Wasn't Me"-The Shag­gy de­fence. Same as telegraphed by ex-PNM leader Patrick Man-ning on Mon­day re­gard­ing PNM fears about his in­ten­tions/move­ments.

"DE­TAI"-Don't-Even-Think-About-It sig­nal from PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley to PNM foes on "re­place­ment" plans. Op­po­site of po­lit­i­cal de­tente.

"Mur­doch ma­noeu­vre"-Death blow vis­it­ed on muck­rak­ing medi­ums such as News of The World us­ing un­scrupu­lous means to get sto­ries. Need­ed lo­cal­ly.

"Lead­er­ship"-Over­worked Cari­com sum-mit-speak. Tri­ni trans­la­tion: "Run de Mon­ey."

"Pipe"-Among PM's re­sponse with pro-jects to Cari­com's call to T&T for lead­er­ship (at the re­cent St Kitts sum­mit).

"CAL or Bust"-Lat­est bumper stick­er on PCM 1 (with gift-wrapped ship­ment Fed Ex-ed to Bar­ba­dos PM Fre­un­del Stu­art.).

"If You ent RED(jet), you dead."-The Ba-jan re­ply.

"Blah"- The (un)fash­ion­able pa­rade for last week Mon­day's par­lia­men­tary launch com­pared to last year's knock­out out­fits, hats and all.

"Bla-nd"-The un­fash­ion­ably mun­dane agen­da (and achieve­ments) of the re­cent St Kitts Cari­com sum­mit.

"Con­spire"-Which PNM chief whip Mar-lene Mc­don­ald prob­a­bly hoped PN­Mites wouldn't think was se­ri­ous­ly im­plied when the PM said she and Mar­lene had "con­spired" to wear grey to last week Mon­day's par­lia­men-tary launch.

"The Pan­day Shuf­fle"-Sub­has joins Bas-deo and Mikela out­side Gov­ern­ment.

"Pave­ment Pound­ing"-What Sub­has did in Port-of-Spain this week to drum up clients.

The "PR" ma­noeu­vre-Hope­ful­ly what the new COP leader will not em­ploy to get ahead. © (G.A.)