Clevon Raphael

I ex­pect politi­cians from the gov­ern­ment or op­po­si­tion par­ties in the Sen­ate (Up­per House), to make in­flam­ma­ble state­ments in the Par­lia­ment be­cause that is the na­ture of an ad­ver­sar­i­al po­lit­i­cal sys­tem such as we have here.But you don't nor­mal­ly hear such con­tri­bu­tions com­ing from the In­de­pen­dent bench­es al­though they are not shy in mak­ing sim­i­lar pro­nounce­ments from time to time. But this one from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira can­not be al­lowed to get a free pass.

The good­ly gen­tle­man, whom I have nev­er had the plea­sure of meet­ing, was in his el­e­ment, sound­ing off on the me­dia from their man­agers to us low­ly scribes. And the source of his ir­ri­ta­tion?Well, it was more than just be­ing ir­ri­ta­ble. Sen­a­tor Vieira, one of the new kids (no dis­re­spect meant, sir) would put all the me­dia hous­es in jeop­ardy if he had his way.

No. No. I nev­er said that the Sen­a­tor wants to shut us down. He wouldn't dare make that bold sug­ges­tion in a coun­try which takes pride in all its 30-some­thing ra­dio sta­tions, sev­er­al TV sta­tions, three dai­ly news­pa­pers and a few week­ly "pa­pers," some of them I wouldn't so clas­si­fy. But that is what you get in a thriv­ing democ­ra­cy. Right?

In the Up­per House last week Vieira called for me­dia hous­es to say which po­lit­i­cal par­ty they do or do not sup­port. I want Sen­a­tor Vieira to think a while about what he has said, that is, if the news­pa­per re­porter got him right. And as far as I know he has not ob­ject­ed to the sto­ry as pub­lished.

http://www.guardian.co.tt/dig­i­tal/new-mem­bers