JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Saturday, July 12, 2025

Prakash moves forward....with whom?

by

20160723

Cer­tain­ly for­mer COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har won't be re­main­ing "mum" much longer.

Con­tro­ver­sy fol­low­ing his agree­ment to be part of the PNM Gov­ern­ment's re­cent Ja­maica mis­sion hasn't es­caped him. And per­haps it may not nec­es­sar­i­ly be his last "in­put" with the Row­ley PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

It'll soon be clear. But it will present an is­sue for the Op­po­si­tion to pon­der.

Fam­i­ly "is­sues"–po­lit­i­cal and oth­er­wise–broke out in var­i­ous sec­tors all week. Some Cen­tral clans were wracked–and split–by the mur­der of no­to­ri­ous Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is, a still un­fold­ing sto­ry.

Fa­mil­ial splits and sna­fus were al­so clear at the US Re­pub­li­can con­ven­tion in Ohio where Don­ald Trump be­came the be­lea­guered par­ty's pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. State gov­er­nor Ron Ka­sich wasn't the on­ly jefe ab­sent.

Team Trump's op­er­a­tional-tight­en­ing will now have to guard against fur­ther pla­gia­ris­ing (from Michelle Oba­ma's ad­dress­es.)

For­mer con­tender Ted Cruz's call for a con­science vote re­mains to be test­ed. And Tues­day's ra­bid con­ven­tion calls to "Lock her (HIllary Clin­ton) up" are set to move from con­fer­ence floor to cam­paign fer­vor.

Trump's state­ments Thurs­day - pitched to LGBT quar­ters among oth­ers–seen as ap­pro­pri­ate­ly mod­er­ate com­pared to con­ven­tion con­fu­sion–will be mea­sured ful­ly when De­moc­rats re­ply with their gath­er­ing next week.

Lo­cal­ly, strate­gic moves by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion–against Op­po­si­tion num­bers–via COP MP Ra­mad­har's in­clu­sion on the Prime Min­is­ter's Ja­maican trip are al­so to play out.

Af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Leader's com­plaint there was no con­sul­ta­tion by Gov­ern­ment on the in­vi­ta­tion to Ra­mad­har (or to Op­po­si­tion MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al) UNC of­fi­cials be­lieve moves to cut in­to their ranks were be­ing made since Bail Bill de­bate when ef­forts were made to meet with the Op­po­si­tion whip and oth­ers– but not the Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Op­po­si­tion whip Gan­ga Singh says that is a breach of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

How that ar­gu­ment holds up with Ra­mad­har's agree­ment on the Ja­maica trip is an­oth­er is­sue. While Ra­mad­har said he cleared it with his COP leader–his for­mer deputy when he was COP leader–UNC of­fi­cials not­ed Ra­mad­har at­tends Op­po­si­tion cau­cus­es and has signed doc­u­ments say­ing he sup­ports Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

Pon­der­ing his ac­tion in the con­text of team uni­ty, some equate his cross­ing of the seas with the Gov­ern­ment team with a "cross­ing of the floor," away from the Op­po­si­tion dock.

Re­in­forc­ing per­spec­tive, on the eve of the Gov­ern­ment del­e­ga­tion's re­turn, the Op­po­si­tion panned the trip.

Yes­ter­day while some UNC of­fi­cials queried Ra­mad­har's role in the trip–not­ing his Op­po­si­tion shad­ow port­fo­lio con­cerns na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and le­gal af­fairs, not for­eign af­fairs–they how­ev­er ac­knowl­edged since he was not a UNC MP, he was on­ly sub­ject to COP sanc­tion, not the UNC's.

"He's said he's mak­ing a state­ment, I await this," Singh said yes­ter­day

In Op­po­si­tion last De­cem­ber, Ra­mad­har said the COP (he'd head­ed then) was out of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and COP might con­test 2020 polls alone.

Yes­ter­day on pos­si­ble fu­ture ac­tion–like the Ja­maica trip– in­clud­ing with gov­ern­ment, Ra­mad­har made it clear he would co-op­er­ate with, and COP would par­tic­i­pate in, "what is good for T&T.... if it in­volves a worth­while ef­fort that's po­ten­tial ben­e­fit for T&T. Ab­solute­ly."

In­clud­ing pro­posed leg­is­la­tion?

"It'll be on a case-by-case ba­sis. I'll have to be per­suad­ed, and oth­er things, I'll try to per­suade oth­er­wise," he added .

He not­ed his Feb­ru­ary state­ment that COP al­lows MPs to act at dis­cre­tion and con­science "So I re­main open" he'd said then.

A month lat­er in March, he'd said there was need for all po­lit­i­cal forces to come to­geth­er to de­feat PNM in 2020. Dis­cus­sion on that has been mulled by some small groups

What­ev­er fu­ture Gov­ern­ment moves Ra­mad­har sup­ports, the reper­cus­sions on his strug­gling par­ty–which bit­ter­ly fought the PNM in 2010–re­main to un­fold. Es­pe­cial­ly since in March, he'd giv­en Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley a four out of ten for his six month per­for­mance, and bare­ly gave the PNM five.

But for­mer PP mem­ber Gary Grif­fith–whose Al­liance of In­de­pen­dents is among small groups talk­ing uni­ty–be­lieve Ra­mad­har's ac­cep­tance of the Ja­maica in­vi­ta­tion can as­sist the COP re­gain cred­i­bil­i­ty and re­build by break­ing out of the PP/UNC shad­ow, ma­ligned in the last term.

"Af­ter the Ja­maica trip, he (Ra­mad­har) should move from the Op­po­si­tion front­bench and go to the back­bench–be in­de­pen­dent," Grif­fith lob­bied.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored