The COP without Winston Dookeran will have lost its character, for the intelligentsia/middle class found it as a rallying point to get away from the "common herd" gravitating either towards the UNC or the PNM.
For them, Dooks would have been bright, all integrity, the "new politics" of fairness and justice and governance by the people, different from the fanaticism, the nepotism and all the other negative "isms" of grassroots politics. The one who was seen as his competitor is just the opposite, loud, indiscreet, brazen, more suited to the "old politics," far removed from the quiet sophistication which Dooks represented, more an attraction to the loud and the illiterate.
Would the COP continue to exist when it will have lost its soul? If the COP is gone or continues to diminish, will the PP continue to exist? Some groups in this country won't be caught dead with a perceived Indian-based party in the UNC or an African-based in the PNM, hence the emergence of the COP. But as COP, they have learnt the bitter lesson of not being able to go on their own from their 150,000 votes without a seat in the previous election, so the PP/UNC is their future as the last election would have demonstrated. This need, of course, is reciprocal, for the UNC needs the COP for a broader base to keep the PNM at bay. So Dooks' withdrawal from the party elections goes beyond that and its members, as the PNM did with Williams a long time ago, should seek to recall him and the UNC should support this, for Dooks at the helm of the COP is also in the UNC's interest.
Dr Errol Benjamin
Via e-mail