Gail Alexan­der

When COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har rose from his seat in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives at 1.53 pm yes­ter­day and left the Par­lia­ment Cham­ber, he didn't re­turn un­til most of the af­ter­noon ses­sion had end­ed. The COP leader, em­bat­tled with­in his own Partern­er­ship Gov­ern­ment may have had good rea­son for the dis­tance he nop­tice­bly put be­tween him­self and his PP col­leagues in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day.

It was un­der­stand­able fol­low­ing the blowout he suf­fered at Wednes­day's 11 hour Cab­i­net meet­ing - a sec­ond "buff" fol­low­ing a sim­i­lar one when he first called for Part­ner­ship meet­ings. Ra­mad­har's 10 month tenure as COP leader may have taxed the ex­pe­ri­ence of his sev­en year po­lit­i­cal ca­reer and pos­si­bly, even his long­stand­ing le­gal ca­reer. But he still seemed in good spir­its yes­ter­day, though not par­tic­u­lar­ly so­cia­ble with bench­mates.

Ra­mad­har how­ev­er will be shar­ing his views this morn­ing af­ter a hot week with­in the PP af­ter COP last Sun­day an­nounced it would adopt an "in­de­pen­dent" po­si­tion on pol­i­cy and leg­isla­tive mat­ters un­til its grous­es-in­clud­ing the Mar­lene Coudray is­sue-are set­tled.

UNC of­fi­cials con­firmed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hint­ed im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter on Mon­day she would hold a spe­cial Cab­i­net meet­ing on the is­sue on Wednes­day. Wednes­day's meet­ing was de­tailed blow by blow by sev­er­al at­ten­dees: from the first speak­ers in­clud­ing Min­is­ters Su­ruj Ram­abachan and John Sandy to Per­sad-Bisses­sar's stern clos­ing pro­nounce­ments and the at­tacks Ra­mad­har suf­fered by front­line UNC mem­bers-and one COP col­league-plus those who de­fend­ed Ra­mad­har and sought the mid­dle ground. At­ten­dees said Ra­mad­har who spoke at 6.45 that day, de­fend­ed his par­ty's stance in­clud­ing on the Caribbean Court of Jus­tice is­sue-but was al­so tak­en to task by sev­er­al on his re­port­ed state­ments in Tues­day's Guardian.

UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er on Thurs­day said the meet­ing in­clud­ed a man­date for a halt on COP bick­er­ing - be­tween Ra­mad­har and col­league Anil Roberts who's played dev­il's ad­vo­cate with his leader. But the edict didn't pre­vent Warn­er from pot­shot­ting Ra­mad­har when he said if ex-COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an was in charge, the sit­u­a­tion wouldn't have oc­curred.

At Tues­day's Sen­ate there was no leg­is­la­tion to test COP's Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith and Dr Bhoe Tewarie on their par­ty's pro­pos­al of non sup­port for bills. Nor did COP's stance threat­ened yes­ter­day's House pro­ceed­ings. With Ra­mad­har's cred­i­bil­i­ty now on the line be­tween the rock of COP's stance and the hard place with his Cab­i­net col­leagues, to­day's COP brief­ing is ex­pect­ed to clear up how he will bridge the gap be­twee re­spon­si­bilty to his par­ty peers and the col­lec­tive cab­i­net re­spon­si­bil­i­ty his boss re­quires.

It is a sit­u­a­tion both for­mer COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an and MSJ's Er­rol Mcleod avoid­ed when they stepped down from the helms of their re­spec­tive par­ties. "Every­thing will be clear at Sat­ur­day's press con­fer­ence," promised COP vice chair­man Ver­non de Li­ma on Thurs­day af­ter COP's ex­ec­u­tive fi­nalised the brief­ing.

That the per­cep­tion of the PP's im­age and its strength has been af­fect­ed by its in­ter­nal chal­lenges was best demon­strat­ed by the ru­mours sur­round­ing Wednes­day's Cab­i­net meet­ing. Texted mes­sages that Ra­mad­har was go­ing to be "fired" which were cir­cu­lat­ed pri­or to the cau­cus (it was con­firmed) could have put Ra­mad­har on the psy­cho­log­i­cal back­foot for the meet­ing. It has now caused COP-ers to look even more sus­pi­cious­ly at the UNC.

COP's mid-term chal­lenge would hard­ly have fired Ra­mad­har and made the sit­u­a­tion worse on Wednes­day. Or cho­sen a Cab­i­net meet­ing to do it as her modus operan­di would show. Nor was there any sign that evening from oth­er rel­e­vant di­vi­sions, as per nec­es­sary pro­to­col, that Ra­mad­har's ap­point­ment was be­ing re­voked.

Apart from is­sues with­in the first es­tate, Wednes­day's sce­nario yield­ed signs there are al­so rea­sons to be con­cerned about the fourth es­tate. The Ra­mad­har ru­mour demon­strat­ed that rat­ings and com­pe­ti­tion­take prece­dence over re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion and pru­dence in as­cer­tain­ing the truth.

Row­ley on the spot

PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley's re­port­ed mil­que­toast re­sponse to Gov­ern­ment's moves on ex- Ude­cott head Calder Hart was a long way from his fiery at­tacks o his one­time tar­get - that he was not aware of the "spe­cif­ic wrong­do­ing" comit­ted by Hart to es­tab­lish a case against him.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the sit­u­a­tion has come full cir­cle from Row­ley's fir­ing ac­cu­sa­tions at PNM on Hart, to now hav­ing to tem­per this since he cur­rent­ly heads the par­ty he'd at­tacked. For­mer leader Patrick Man­ning who took the brunt of Row­ley's fire is mean­while clear­ly de­ter­mined to ob­tain "full re­cov­ery" from his stroke as Face­book posts in­di­cate. The de­ter­mi­na­tion may al­so re­flect Man­ning's in­tent to con­tin­ue to term's end as he'd promised. But his lat­est post­ing hints at phys­i­cal chal­lenges to his will.