Clevon Raphael

Pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi is not tak­ing bait from Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj with re­spect to con­test­ing the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion.Al-Rawi is, how­ev­er, as­sur­ing that large num­bers of tra­di­tion­al non-sup­port­ers of the PNM have been ex­press­ing sup­port for the par­ty. These peo­ple, who were sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion, he claims, feel be­trayed by the PP regime.

Sen­a­tor, when are you go­ing to start your cam­paign­ing for the Ch­agua­nas West seat?

(In his St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, cham­bers on Thurs­day af­ter­noon) The PNM stands unique in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape in T&T and has, since 1956, con­test­ed all elec­toral dis­tricts with fer­vour and with dis­tinc­tion. It stands as a par­ty with a writ­ten con­sti­tu­tion which is ever evolv­ing and it stands with par­ty struc­tures that have with­stood the test of time.

In this back­ground, the PNM will win Ch­agua­nas West when it is of­fi­cial­ly de­clared va­cant and the elec­tion is held. We have be­gun the process of screen­ing can­di­dates for the by-elec­tion which is ex­pect­ed to be had in that seat.This ex­er­cise will co­in­cide with the PNM's ex­er­cise of screen­ing for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, which has been on­go­ing for quite some time now and which has pro­duced spec­tac­u­lar can­di­dates thus far.

Why do you say "spec­tac­u­lar," and why did you avoid an­swer­ing the first ques­tion?

I cer­tain­ly did. I give you the struc­tures by which the screen­ing will be con­duct­ed. We must act with dis­ci­pline and with­in our par­ty struc­tures.There has been no an­nounce­ment by the Speak­er in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion of T&T as to the de­c­la­ra­tion of a va­cant seat, and my re­main­ing in the PNM, more par­tic­u­lar­ly as a play­er, con­fines me to ex­er­cise dis­ci­pline at all times.

With re­spect to my re­mark on spec­tac­u­lar can­di­dates, I am ex­cit­ed over the plea­sure in wel­com­ing young, bright, non-tra­di­tion­al PNM sup­port­ers to the par­ty, who have pre­sent­ed them­selves for screen­ing in large num­bers.

What do you mean by tra­di­tion­al sup­port­ers?

Some of the peo­ple who the PNM has screened said they were not tra­di­tion­al sup­port­ers but feel com­pelled to join the PNM be­cause of their be­lief in our mis­sion and, im­por­tant­ly, be­cause of their dis­gust with the rul­ing Gov­ern­ment who they sup­port­ed on the last oc­ca­sion and who they be­lieve has be­trayed them.

How do you know they were sup­port­ers of the PP, or did they show you their mem­ber­ship card in any of the coali­tion part­ners?

The PNM, in its par­ty struc­tures, right down to the street cap­tains, know very well who has sup­port­ed and who has not sup­port­ed the PNM over the years.

By that same to­ken, do you know if I vot­ed for or against the PNM in 2010?

No. I would not know who you vot­ed for, al­though I may spec­u­late.How­ev­er, I do know that the PNM lost the sup­port of the vast ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens in the last gen­er­al elec­tion and we have been work­ing to re­gain the trust of the cit­i­zens of this coun­try since that un­for­tu­nate event.

Why is it you are still not an­swer­ing my first ques­tion di­rect­ly?

I was asked once, then fol­lowed by an en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent tan­gent, but if you wish to pose it again then I will an­swer as fol­lows: The PNM will field an ap­pro­pri­ate can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas West af­ter the par­ty's screen­ing and ap­proval process, once the seat has been of­fi­cial­ly de­clared to be va­cant, and I will stop there.

In the con­text of your ear­li­er de­scrip­tion of tra­di­tion­al PNM sup­port and al­though you spoke of the par­ty's screen­ing process, can we see a non-tra­di­tion­al can­di­date of the PNM con­test­ing that seat?

I wish to be clear that my use of the word "tra­di­tion­al" has no con­nec­tion to eth­nic­i­ty, as the PNM has en­joyed tra­di­tion­al­ly strong sup­port from eth­nic group­ings of all types in T&T. I am my­self but one ex­am­ple of that.The "tra­di­tion­al" that I speak of is the ex­pres­sion of per­son­al views of sup­port­ers who in­form us that their fam­i­lies do not tra­di­tion­al­ly sup­port the PNM.

In an­swer to your ques­tion, I can say that the PNM doors are wide open and that it would not be un­usu­al in this re­gard to have some­one who pre­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed the UNC run on a PNM tick­et, if the screen­ing com­mit­tee and par­ty ex­ec­u­tive con­sid­er them fit and prop­er.

Sen­a­tor, let's be bru­tal­ly frank. Giv­en our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture as ex­em­pli­fied by the way we vote at na­tion­al elec­tions, would the PNM seek to present a non-In­do-Trinida­di­an to con­test that seat?

The PNM does not have re­gard to race and has al­ways field­ed can­di­dates based up­on the screen­ing com­mit­tee's view that the can­di­date can achieve mass sup­port in the elec­toral con­test.In this re­gard, it is note­wor­thy that the PNM re­formed its con­sti­tu­tion and re­moved the po­lit­i­cal leader's pow­er to ve­to any can­di­date at screen­ing and en­larged the broad-based view of the screen­ing com­mit­tee pow­ers.

This re­form guar­an­tees the PNM will con­tin­ue to choose the best can­di­date for any par­tic­u­lar seat with­out re­gard to eth­nic­i­ty.Sen­a­tor, I may sound like a stuck record or a re­cur­ring dec­i­mal, but to re­turn to my first ques­tion, are you in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing that seat, as one of your par­lia­men­tary col­leagues has open­ly ex­pressed his de­sire to do?

I am not in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing the elec­tion for Ch­agua­nas West and I am not tak­ing any bait from Sen­a­tor Ma­haraj who him­self seems un­will­ing to test the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of his own can­di­da­cy for Ch­agua­nas West.I can say that it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for me hav­ing no roots in Ch­agua­nas West, to con­sid­er that I would be the best can­di­date to serve the good cit­i­zens of Ch­agua­nas West.

Elec­toral pol­i­tics must be ra­tio­nal and rea­son­able and can­di­dates must al­ways bear in mind that the pri­ma­ry pur­pose for their ser­vice re­sides in ad­dress­ing the needs of the peo­ple who com­prise elec­toral dis­tricts.

If you were to con­test the seat what would be your main sell­ing point in the con­text of the last gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat of the par­ty and the cir­cum­stances un­der which it suf­fered that loss?

The main sell­ing points re­side around pol­i­cy, dis­ci­pline, ref­or­ma­tion, rel­e­vance and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. The PNM got a prop­er bruis­ing in the 2010 elec­tion on ac­count of al­le­ga­tions of profli­ga­cy and hubris. The PP sold it­self as the so­lu­tion to every is­sue, in­clud­ing crime and the econ­o­my, with­out any suc­cess.

The PNM has spent con­sid­er­able ef­forts and time in writ­ing clear poli­cies for im­ple­men­ta­tion and gov­ern­ment and has re­built its ap­proach and broad­ened its par­ty base. We have been ably as­sist­ed by the dis­as­trous and scan­dalous per­for­mance of the PP, which has demon­strat­ed a fun­da­men­tal lack of co­her­ence and dis­ci­pline.

It has al­so demon­strat­ed blind­ness to­wards pub­lic pol­i­cy and a lev­el of in­ep­ti­tude which has no equal with re­spect to im­ple­men­ta­tion of pol­i­cy; the econ­o­my has ground to a halt in the face of $208 bil­lion of ap­proved ex­pen­di­ture which the av­er­age cit­i­zen has not seen. Crime has run away and seems to be be­yond this Gov­ern­ment to con­trol, and I feel con­fi­dent that the PNM can gar­ner sup­port from the cit­i­zens of Trinidad who feel lost, abused and be­trayed by this Gov­ern­ment.

Af­ter that bit of cam­paign talk, if the PNM should win the by-elec­tion and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, what would these re­sults mean for the par­ty's ap­proach to 2015?

Whether the PNM wins or los­es both elec­tions it is but one side of a mul­ti-faceted analy­sis that is go­ing to be more rel­e­vant to the par­ty's march to­wards 2015. And it's by no means a fore­gone con­clu­sion that Mr Warn­er will be that can­di­date.The his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence from 1986 for the elec­toral dis­trict of Ch­agua­nas and Ch­agua­nas West demon­strates that in­cum­bents who win hand­some­ly can lose their de­posits in sub­se­quent elec­tions.

This per­haps demon­strates some of the lit­mus test­ing that is an­tic­i­pat­ed by the by-elec­tion and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls.

Fi­nal­ly, apart from the many is­sues fac­ing the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, what sin­gle is­sue do you think needs to be tack­led at this time?

It is in­ter­est­ing to note the re-emer­gence of the Prime Min­is­ter's voice in the na­tion­al pol­i­tics, even if it is faint and fee­ble at best.But she has a lot to an­swer for and must pro­vide ex­pla­na­tions to the cit­i­zens as to her lead­er­ship of the Cab­i­net, the Gov­ern­ment, and on the dis­cus­sions which she had last week, with rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the US State De­part­ment.

The coun­try is wait­ing for the Prime Min­is­ter to step up to the plate and to take con­trol of her run­away gov­ern­ment, which seems to be no more than a band of mas­querad­ing ma­raud­ers.��

Sen­a­tor, I may sound like a stuck record or a re­cur­ring dec­i­mal, but to re­turn to my first ques­tion, are you in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing that seat, as one of your par­lia­men­tary col­leagues has open­ly ex­pressed his de­sire to do?

I am not in­ter­est­ed in con­test­ing the elec­tion for Ch­agua­nas West and I am not tak­ing any bait from Sen­a­tor Ma­haraj who him­self seems un­will­ing to test the ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of his own can­di­da­cy for Ch­agua­nas West.I can say that it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for me hav­ing no roots in Ch­agua­nas West, to con­sid­er that I would be the best can­di­date to serve the good cit­i­zens of Ch­agua­nas West.

Elec­toral pol­i­tics must be ra­tio­nal and rea­son­able and can­di­dates must al­ways bear in mind that the pri­ma­ry pur­pose for their ser­vice re­sides in ad­dress­ing the needs of the peo­ple who com­prise elec­toral dis­tricts.

If you were to con­test the seat what would be your main sell­ing point in the con­text of the last gen­er­al elec­tion de­feat of the par­ty and the cir­cum­stances un­der which it suf­fered that loss?

The main sell­ing points re­side around pol­i­cy, dis­ci­pline, ref­or­ma­tion, rel­e­vance and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. The PNM got a prop­er bruis­ing in the 2010 elec­tion on ac­count of al­le­ga­tions of profli­ga­cy and hubris.The PP sold it­self as the so­lu­tion to every is­sue, in­clud­ing crime and the econ­o­my, with­out any suc­cess.

The PNM has spent con­sid­er­able ef­forts and time in writ­ing clear poli­cies for im­ple­men­ta­tion and gov­ern­ment and has re­built its ap­proach and broad­ened its par­ty base. We have been ably as­sist­ed by the dis­as­trous and scan­dalous per­for­mance of the PP, which has demon­strat­ed a fun­da­men­tal lack of co­her­ence and dis­ci­pline.

It has al­so demon­strat­ed blind­ness to­wards pub­lic pol­i­cy and a lev­el of in­ep­ti­tude which has no equal with re­spect to im­ple­men­ta­tion of pol­i­cy; the econ­o­my has ground to a halt in the face of $208 bil­lion of ap­proved ex­pen­di­ture which the av­er­age cit­i­zen has not seen. Crime has run away and seems to be be­yond this Gov­ern­ment to con­trol, and I feel con­fi­dent that the PNM can gar­ner sup­port from the cit­i­zens of Trinidad who feel lost, abused and be­trayed by this Gov­ern­ment.

Af­ter that bit of cam­paign talk, if the PNM should win the by-elec­tion and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, what would these re­sults mean for the par­ty's ap­proach to 2015?

Whether the PNM wins or los­es both elec­tions it is but one side of a mul­ti-faceted analy­sis that is go­ing to be more rel­e­vant to the par­ty's march to­wards 2015. And it's by no means a fore­gone con­clu­sion that Mr Warn­er will be that can­di­date.The his­tor­i­cal ev­i­dence from 1986 for the elec­toral dis­trict of Ch­agua­nas and Ch­agua­nas West demon­strates that in­cum­bents who win hand­some­ly can lose their de­posits in sub­se­quent elec­tions.

This per­haps demon­strates some of the lit­mus test­ing that is an­tic­i­pat­ed by the by-elec­tion and the lo­cal gov­ern­ment polls.

Fi­nal­ly, apart from the many is­sues fac­ing the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, what sin­gle is­sue do you think needs to be tack­led at this time?

It is in­ter­est­ing to note the re-emer­gence of the Prime Min­is­ter's voice in the na­tion­al pol­i­tics, even if it is faint and fee­ble at best.But she has a lot to an­swer for and must pro­vide ex­pla­na­tions to the cit­i­zens as to her lead­er­ship of the Cab­i­net, the Gov­ern­ment, and on the dis­cus­sions which she had last week, with rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the US State De­part­ment.

The coun­try is wait­ing for the Prime Min­is­ter to step up to the plate and to take con­trol of her run­away gov­ern­ment, which seems to be no more than a band of mas­querad­ing ma­raud­ers.��