"D'Abadie-cool it!" snapped the Speaker, irritated out of his usual formality, only a few minutes into Friday's debate on the Opposition's no-confidence motion. The PNM was delighted, and so were some of the errant Anil Roberts's other listeners, in and out of the House. The debate seemed to be hotting up nicely. But the excitement soon fizzled out, and not just because the Speaker was keeping a tight rein.
The Opposition's approach was dogged rather than dramatic. There's a special hushed tone of horror and resignation that BBC correspondents use to report from the scene of disasters. Opposition Leader Keith Rowley used this Grim Reaper voice on Friday; sadly, it doesn't accommodate jokes, or indeed any form of wit. A third of the Government's term having elapsed, he said, it was reasonable for the Leader of the Opposition to lay out his concerns about how public business was being conducted.
He was right; this could have been a useful performance review. But a weeks-long campaign had climaxed that morning in a UNC rally on the waterfront (did it have police permission?). Supporters in sunshine yellow clustered around the fountain or slipped into the air-conditioned Hyatt lobby for a beer. By then the occasion was about show as much as substance.
Dr Rowley often gets off to a slow start, but on Friday he never really warmed up. He needed to show either new, shocking evidence of mischief, or a comprehensive pattern of incompetence and corruption. He did neither, but presented a rushed, jumbled string of accusations The Prime Minister had appointed "a telephone operator or a clerk" to head the Strategic Services Agency. Challenged on the appointment, she had urged, "Let's move on."
Reshmi Ramnarine had moved on, he revealed, by changing her name to Shashi Rehka. Where was she now ensconced in the Government with a new job, he asked, under the patronage of some minister? Surely she must be blackmailing the Prime Minister, he said, asking Ms Persad-Bissessar directly, "What does Reshmi Ramnarine have over you?" Unfortunately, these weren't rhetorical questions, and the Opposition really didn't know the answers. The Government certainly wasn't going to tell them.
The single most important indictment of the Government, argued Dr Rowley, was that they had brought the economy to a halt, despite unexpectedly strong energy prices. The public had been led to expect a dramatic, ongoing drop in crime after the 90-day Emergency, during which people had been abused. Then he reverted to the economy, quoting the Central Bank Governor's forecast of a gloomy 2012, owing to increased expenditure, frozen revenues and significant borrowing.
There were one or two shreds of news in this ragbag of a presentation. Former Transport Minister Jack Warner had asked the Integrity Commission to investigate Caribbean Airlines chairman George Nicholas after the airline awarded a contract to one of Mr Nicholas's companies. But the Prime Minister had disregarded the Finance Minister's recommendation that the board should be dismissed and had removed transport from Mr Warner's portfolio.
She should call for the resignation of one of her ministers, who had used a government credit card at a Movietowne restaurant and for cash withdrawals, though it was for use on government business overseas. Asked about the amounts involved, Dr Rowley flicked through the bundle of statements he was holding, then decided, "I don't have time to go through the fine print." Leader of Government Business Dr Roodal Moonilal asked nonchalantly who the minister was.
"Tobago Development," said Dr Rowley. The Government was unfazed. Clearly they had been expecting this. Dr Moonilal, speaking next, sneered at Dr Rowley's efforts. Surely the Prime Minister must have committed a great error and damaged the reputation of the country? Because a no-confidence motion, Dr Moonilal made out, wasn't for summarising what you'd been saying for the past year, or raising issues that could have been filed as questions. So what if "Reshmi change she name"?
Tobago Development Minister Vernella Alleyne-Toppin's credit-card bill, which had been paid off, was for $4,000: "And on that the Government should fall?" Dr Moonilal sidestepped the real issue: not the figure, but that fact that the minister shouldn't have been using the card at all. He revealed a palace coup in which PNM members had plotted all over the Caribbean to bring down former Prime Minister Patrick Manning. That was why he had called the 2010 election, taking "the glorious way out."
Grumbling that Dr Rowley had rehashed the events of the past two years, Dr Moonilal rehashed older ones. As Minister of Housing, he alleged, Dr Rowley had given $60-million contracts to a company called Vidara, whose directors he named. "Anybody knows who's Laura Khan?" he asked. Another company that got contracts was run by Suzanne Williams-Imbert.
"I dunno who is that," Dr Moonilal pretended. If any such information came to the present Prime Minister, the response would be, "Hello! Stop that." On numerical grounds, as Dr Moonilal unkindly observed, the motion was "dead on arrival." By the time he finished speaking, he had also dug away the moral high ground from beneath the Opposition and run rhetorical rings around them. Dr Rowley's Voice of Doom should have been reserved for the PNM.