Sat Ma­haraj

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment are still very strong amidst the dif­fer­ences that have re­cent­ly sur­faced in­side the coali­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has man­aged, prob­a­bly bet­ter than a male leader would, to hold her par­ty to­geth­er and keep the sup­port and mo­men­tum high.

Kam­la was born on April 22, 1952, to Raj and Ri­ta Per­sad. She be­gan her ed­u­ca­tion at the Mo­hess Road Hin­du School and Erin Road Pres­by­ter­ian School. Her sec­ondary ed­u­ca­tion was at Iere High School, Siparia. She lat­er moved to Nor­wood Tech­ni­cal Col­lege, Lon­don, to be­gin her ter­tiary ed­u­ca­tion and there­after the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies at Mona and then Cave Hill.

She holds a Bach­e­lor of Arts (Hons) de­gree, a Bach­e­lor of Laws (Hons) from the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies and a Diplo­ma in Ed­u­ca­tion and pur­sued stud­ies in the Mas­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion. She has been a high school teacher, both in T&T (at Lak­sh­mi Girls Col­lege) and Ja­maica, and at age 25 she be­came one of the youngest uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­ers at UWI, Mona.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er pur­sued a ca­reer in law and was named the top stu­dent at her grad­u­a­tion from the Hugh Wood­ing Law School, win­ning prizes for the Most Out­stand­ing Stu­dent and the Best Over­all Per­for­mance. She was ad­mit­ted to the Bar in 1987.

The PP Gov­ern­ment is al­most at its mid-term and this is a most cru­cial time and will de­ter­mine its sur­vival. Our coun­try's his­to­ry will show that the last coali­tion gov­ern­ment was es­tab­lished in 1986 with the com­ing to­geth­er of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion, the Unit­ed Labour Front (ULF), the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Ac­tion Con­gress and the Tapia House Move­ment, as well as a few dis­si­dent PNM mem­bers, to form the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion.

It was dur­ing the par­ty's mid-term in 1988 that the then ULF leader, Bas­deo Pan­day, was ex­pelled, tak­ing with him five oth­er for­mer ULF mem­bers to form the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress. Sub­se­quent­ly a fur­ther five MPs de­fect­ed to be­come in­de­pen­dents.

If Prakash Ra­mad­har had pulled out of the Part­ner­ship with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple he would have prob­a­bly tak­en about the same num­ber. Sim­i­lar­ly, if the Prime Min­is­ter had ex­pelled him, his­to­ry would have prob­a­bly re­peat­ed it­self and the re­turn of the PNM would have been in­evitable. Thank­ful­ly, nei­ther hap­pened and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship re­mains sol­id to­day.

On May 24, the cel­e­bra­tion at Mid-Cen­tre Mall in Ch­agua­nas to com­mem­o­rate its sec­ond year in of­fice was an over­whelm­ing suc­cess. It is quite dif­fi­cult to mo­bilise a few hun­dred far less thou- sands to gath­er for the pur­pose of a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing out­side of an elec­tion. Nev­er­the­less, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has man­aged to do just this and not on­ly in T&T.

When this is com­pared to the present sit­u­a­tion of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment, it is in­deed laugh­able. Dr Kei­th Row­ley has proved him­self to be one of the worst lead­ers in this par­ty's 56-year his­to­ry. Row­ley has dis­ap­point­ed his par­ty and those out­side who had be­come fed up of Man­ning and had hoped that Row­ley would add val­ue to the par­ty and re­build it as the dom­i­nant in­sti­tu­tion it once was.

He is un­able to bring to­geth­er his own in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive and core ac­tivists of the PNM and many re­main di­vid­ed, with some even be­com­ing dis­si­dent. The most con­tro­ver­sial of the lot is Port-of-Spain May­or Louis Lee Sing. Row­ley seems un­able to deal with the some­times in­de­pen­dent views of Lee Sing and this has added to the per­cep­tion that he is not the man to take the great PNM through the next elec­tion. His sole com­ment on the mat­ter thus far has been, "No gen­er­al likes to know that...the first time the en­e­my fires his sal­vo, you turn tail and start fir­ing on your own troops. No gen­er­al likes that."

Row­ley lacks the abil­i­ty to con­trol and lead his small par­lia­men­tary cau­cus. In­stead of be­ing a re­spon­si­ble op­po­si­tion leader, he is get­ting a rep­u­ta­tion as a rab­ble-rouser, of­ten rais­ing is­sues with­out prop­er re­search. Row­ley has al­so failed to take the PNM for­ward in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry, keep­ing it right where it was back in 1956-a sin­gle eth­ni­cal­ly based po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion that keeps the so­ci­ety po­larised.

From her dress to her hair and more re­cent­ly her affin­i­ty to her sis­ter Vid­wat­tie New­ton, the Prime Min­is­ter has been heav­i­ly crit­i­cised by Row­ley and his few sup­port­ers. Louis Lee Sing recog­nis­es that with the "weak PNM team with­in the Par­lia­ment we will not on­ly be out­gunned, but out­matched."

The PNM would have to de­cide if it wants to keep Row­ley and re­main where it is or move in­to the 21st cen­tu­ry with a leader who is will­ing to build a tru­ly na­tion­al par­ty and get back in gov­ern­ment. Ac­cord­ing to one se­nior mem­ber of the PNM in a re­cent con­ver­sa­tion, "Er­ic prob­a­bly rolling in his grave." With Sug­ar Aloes once say­ing "is PNM till ah dead" and ap­pear­ing May 24 on the PP stage at Mid-Cen­tre Mall, it prob­a­bly means the PNM is re­al­ly dead.

• Sat­narayan Ma­haraj is the sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha