GILLIAN LUCKY

There is no deny­ing that for­mer Cab­i­net min­is­ter and Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er en­joys great pop­u­lar­i­ty among the mass­es, as was ev­i­denced by the large crowd that at­tend­ed his meet­ing last Thurs­day when he ex­plained his ver­sion of the events that led to his res­ig­na­tion as a min­is­ter and chair­man of the UNC.

Be­fore his pub­lic de­c­la­ra­tion, many spec­u­lat­ed that Warn­er would not be bold enough to re­lin­quish his seat, as this, in their view, was the on­ly means of en­sur­ing his po­lit­i­cal rel­e­vance.

As true tes­ti­mo­ny of his de­sire to get a fresh man­date from the peo­ple who elect­ed him in­to of­fice, Warn­er, at the end of his ad­dress, stat­ed to his con­stituents that his res­ig­na­tion would be for­ward­ed to the Speak­er of the House at the par­lia­men­tary sit­ting the next day.

With that said, the po­lit­i­cal hat-trick was com­plete, with Warn­er giv­ing up all three of his pow­er­ful po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions.

Look­ing ahead

At the time of writ­ing, the UNC ex­ec­u­tive is sched­uled to meet to dis­cuss the mat­ter of the se­lec­tion of its can­di­date for the up-com­ing by-elec­tion, but based on pub­lic ut­ter­ances by se­nior par­ty stal­warts, it seems un­like­ly that Warn­er will get the nod from his par­ty as the UNC can­di­date.

And while the de­ci­sion to dis­tance the Gov­ern­ment from Warn­er may be the on­ly op­tion avail­able to the UNC, it does not mean that the man who was once, and for many still is, con­sid­ered a po­lit­i­cal gi­ant will go down with­out a fight.

For some, the rapid ac­cep­tance of the Warn­er res­ig­na­tion as a Cab­i­net mem­ber, there­by deny­ing the re­quest by Warn­er to give it ef­fect when he made the an­nounce­ment at the Fri­day sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, was noth­ing short of a box in the face to an in­di­vid­ual who was once be­lieved to be the pup­pet mas­ter of the Prime Min­is­ter.

Whether there was any truth to this be­lief, the ac­tion of the Prime Min­is­ter has cer­tain­ly put this is­sue to rest. The ho­n­ourable la­dy is no one's pup­pet and if ever she was, the strings are per­ma­nent­ly cut.

How­ev­er, many ob­servers have opined that the Warn­er res­ig­na­tions should not be light­ly dis­missed by his for­mer po­lit­i­cal col­leagues, some of whom ap­pear to be hap­py with the sud­den turn of events.

Those who are ec­sta­t­ic be­lieve that the Jack fac­tor is no longer a mat­ter of con­cern, but they ought to be mind­ful that what goes around, comes around and what eh meet yuh, ent pass yuh.

There have been sev­er­al ex­am­ples in which the worst po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies have be­come the best of friends and the best po­lit­i­cal friends have be­come the worst po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies.

What is clear, how­ev­er, is that the worst po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies are those that come from with­in the ranks–whether they be­long to a ca­bal or act alone.

Po­lit­i­cal blow

Who would have thought that the great Warn­er, who has as­sist­ed thou­sands in his ca­pac­i­ty as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, both in Op­po­si­tion and in Gov­ern­ment, would find him­self in such a po­lit­i­cal mess, with peo­ple who once hugged him close­ly now dis­tanc­ing them­selves with a ten-foot pole?

Of course, those who are sea­soned politi­cians would not be sur­prised by the ever-chang­ing and un­sta­ble po­lit­i­cal land­scape be­cause in the game of pol­i­tics, any mark can play. But Warn­er has al­ways held him­self to be a close al­ly of the Prime Min­is­ter, from her ear­ly days when she de­feat­ed the mighty Bas­deo Pan­day as po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC and her his­toric elec­tion as the first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter.

Warn­er has for some time been the sub­ject of al­le­ga­tions with re­spect to foot­ball mat­ters as it re­lates to his role as the vice pres­i­dent of Fi­fa and the pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf, yet the Prime Min­is­ter nev­er saw it fit be­fore now to take the dras­tic ac­tion of re­mov­ing Warn­er from her Cab­i­net.

In fact, the Prime Min­is­ter ap­point­ed Warn­er on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions to act in her po­si­tion when she was abroad and she al­so gave him the hot but pres­ti­gious Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

For such a twist of fate to have oc­curred–lit­er­al­ly mov­ing Warn­er from hero to ze­ro–sug­gests that the Prime Min­is­ter is privy to in­for­ma­tion that has forced her to act in such a de­ci­sive man­ner.

Blind­sided

With all that has tran­spired since the an­nounce­ment and sub­mis­sion of his res­ig­na­tions, it is ob­vi­ous that par­ties and in­di­vid­u­als have been blind­sided, with each af­fect­ed en­ti­ty deny­ing the in­ten­si­ty of the in­jury caused by this ma­jor po­lit­i­cal blow.

The part­ner­ship has had its fair share of po­lit­i­cal frac­tures but many pre­dict that the Jack crack will not be eas­i­ly mend­ed.The UNC com­pris­es a few po­lit­i­cal vet­er­ans who can give the prop­er ad­vice in this lat­est po­lit­i­cal sce­nario, but whether such peo­ple have the ear of the Prime Min­is­ter is an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent mat­ter.