Clevon Raphael

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion has hit rock bot­tom, but it is not too late to change the for­tunes of the coali­tion. So says the chair­man of one of the par­ties in the PP, Joseph Toney, of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple. Mr Toney, an at­tor­ney who served as a min­is­ter in the NAR gov­ern­ment, which suf­fered a tremen­dous blow af­ter the Mus­limeen in­sur­rec­tion in 1990, claims he is see­ing signs which pre­ced­ed those events rear­ing their heads at this time. The na­tion, he cau­tions, must be vig­i­lant and view with con­cern the com­ing to­geth­er of cer­tain groups op­posed to the PP.

Q: Mr Toney, why is the Con­gress of the Peo­ple vac­il­lat­ing on whether or not it should re­main or pull out of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion gov­ern­ment?

A: (Ca­su­al­ly dressed, in the liv­ing room of his Prov­i­dence Gar­dens, San­ta Cruz home late Thurs­day night);

Well, well, it is not a ques­tion of vac­il­lat­ing. No one unit of the COP can make de­ci­sions for the par­ty and there have been dis­cus­sions on this mat­ter in the par­ty over a pe­ri­od of time.

What is the mech­a­nism for the par­ty to take ma­jor de­ci­sions like the one in this cur­rent de­bate?

De­ci­sions like that in my view would have to be tak­en by the par­ty's na­tion­al as­sem­bly and var­i­ous con­stituen­cies may all have their views but at the end of the day we have to get con­sen­sus and have the par­ty po­si­tion where mem­bers can en­sure those are the true views of the COP.

The fact that the par­ty is hold­ing sev­er­al meet­ings at this time to de­cide on...?

(Quick­ly in­ter­rupt­ing) We are not meet­ing to de­cide on that ques­tion and I don't want you to go away with that im­pres­sion.

But isn't that the mes­sage which is be­ing spread out there?

Well, you know some­times there are peo­ple who would want to pro­mote that in the me­dia, but that is not the case. We have em­barked on a course of dis­cus­sions with the par­ty's mem­ber­ship to get their views to hear how they feel on the mat­ter.

Mr Toney, what is your per­son­al view on the COP walk­ing away from the PP gov­ern­ment?

I wouldn't want take a view one way or the oth­er be­cause as chair­man of the par­ty....

Aren't you try­ing to duck the ques­tion?

(In­ter­rupt­ing again)

Clevon, please, I am say­ing I have to abide and re­flect the views of the mem­ber­ship of the par­ty...

You are aware that high-pro­file mem­bers of the COP, in­clud­ing Cab­i­net min­is­ters, are adamant that there should be no pulling out of the coali­tion?

And there are mem­bers who have a con­trary view.

How much dam­age do you think the PP would suf­fer if the COP leaves its fold?

I think it would weak­en the Gov­ern­ment. Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly it would be bad for the Gov­ern­ment.

Mr Toney, there is this con­stant crit­i­cism from cer­tain peo­ple that the COP has sold out to who­ev­er or what­ev­er..?

I would ex­pect the PNM to say that. The PNM has a vest­ed in­ter­est in en­sur­ing that the PP is de­stroyed...that is their po­lit­i­cal agen­da.

Isn't this de­bate in the COP giv­ing the PNM fu­el to pur­sue this agen­da?

Well, I am not one to fall in in­to the trap of the PNM's agen­da...I in town too long (laughs) to fall for that strat­e­gy, which is to get the PP out of of­fice, to kill off, po­lit­i­cal­ly, the COP and to go back in­to gov­ern­ment. The fact is as chair­man I have a du­ty to hear what every sin­gle mem­ber has to say on this very im­por­tant mat­ter.

If, at the end of the day, Mr Toney, the COP should de­cide to break ranks with the PP regime?

(Ges­tic­u­lat­ing with hands spread out) I have no prob­lem with that, what­so­ev­er. Ab­solute­ly no prob­lem if the COP de­cides to leave the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship and we get crack­ing on en­sur­ing that we con­tin­ue to do our po­lit­i­cal work.

Do you re­al­ly be­lieve Mr Chair­man, that the COP could win a gen­er­al elec­tion on its own?

(Briefly con­tem­plat­ing his re­sponse) It de­pends on the amount of work that you do...you don't win an elec­tion by wish­ing to win an elec­tion... you have to go out in the con­stituen­cies, form groups, hold meet­ings, you have to go out in the field, do the work to win an elec­tion.

Mr Toney, I want a com­plete­ly un­bi­ased re­sponse to this ques­tion. On a scale of one to ten, ten be­ing the high­est, how do you rate the per­for­mance of the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion?

(One fin­ger on lips and right el­bow on ta­ble) My own view is that the PP gov­ern­ment is now at rock bot­tom.

What? You are watch­ing me with a straight face and giv­ing me that kind of re­sponse? Are you sure you don't want to re­tract that as­sess­ment?

It's at rock bot­tom. I think that...

Are you sure you do not want to re­con­sid­er, Mr Toney?

(Shak­ing his palms neg­a­tive­ly) No. No. There is a ma­jor, ma­jor lack of trust now of the Gov­ern­ment and there is a ma­jor lack of cred­i­bil­i­ty. I am say­ing that the PP Gov­ern­ment-all of us...

What is re­spon­si­ble for this al­leged lack of trust?

(Frown­ing) Be­cause of the Sec­tion 34 mat­ter. All of us now have to dig very deeply to re­build that trust, that con­fi­dence in the pop­u­la­tion and to build back the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Is it too late to achieve those goals?

No. I think there is time for that. I think that we have to en­gage, re-en­gage the pop­u­la­tion not with the gim­mick­ry, in a re­al way to en­sure we re­build that trust. Sec­tion 34 has dealt a heavy blow to the cred­i­bil­i­ty of our gov­ern­ment.

Do you buy in­to the spin, Mr Toney, that this sit­u­a­tion arose out of a con­spir­a­cy to de­ceive the pop­u­la­tion?

I don't have any in­for­ma­tion about that and we have to start from where the clause be­came law, that is, the Par­lia­ment. I see that a lot of peo­ple...I see Mr Row­ley is froth­ing at the mouth...you know, smelling blood. He is all over the coun­try. Mr David Ab­du­lah him­self has joined him.

So what about that?

Clevon, Mr Ab­du­lah and Mr Row­ley were two of the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans who vot­ed for this piece of leg­is­la­tion and for that clause to be­come law. Were they in­volved in some kind of con­spir­a­cy which they are claim­ing ex­ist­ed? I don't think so. They were care­less and not alert enough in the Par­lia­ment but I have no in­for­ma­tion about any mas­sive con­spir­a­cy to free any­one.

The Jus­tice Min­is­ter has been re­placed but still there are calls for more po­lit­i­cal heads to be chopped off..?

(A sar­don­ic chuck­le) Well, of course. I would ex­pect Mr Row­ley would milk this is­sue un­til there is no more milk to be had-and that is his role, you know. But I looked at the news tonight and I see where he in­tends to bring a mo­tion of cen­sure against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. I want to see what new in­for­ma­tion-if any-Mr Row­ley has to come to the con­clu­sion that there is need for the cen­sur­ing of the ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Mr Toney, the Joint Trade Union Move­ment is meet­ing with the PNM. What do you make of this de­vel­op­ment?

Yes. First of all when they meet the PNM I hope they would ask the par­ty why the PNM when they were in gov­ern­ment and had the mon­ey, didn't they con­clude all these out­stand­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions in the pub­lic sec­tor? They have been clam­our­ing for this gov­ern­ment to con­clude these ne­go­ti­a­tions, com­plete­ly ig­nor­ing the state of the econ­o­my at this time. Sec­ond­ly, Clevon, I think we have to be care­ful with these bod­ies com­ing to­geth­er.

Why? And aren't we all free to talk with whom we wish?

(A se­ri­ous coun­te­nance) Clevon, as I watch the po­lit­i­cal front, what hap­pened in 1989, pri­or to the de­struc­tive events of 1990, the com­ing to­geth­er of the PNM and sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions-Do you re­mem­ber SOPO? I am see­ing some things that I do not feel too hap­py about. There were march­es and be­ing bel­liger­ent, mak­ing un­rea­son­able de­mands and so on. Among them was the gen­tle­man who turned out to be the leader of the 1990 in­sur­rec­tion.

And?

So, Clevon we need to watch these things very close­ly. It is a se­ri­ous mat­ter and I think we have to en­sure there is no at­tempt to il­le­gal­ly desta­bilise the coun­try. I know the type of trau­ma the coun­try can go through when there is un­nec­es­sary so­cial un­rest. The na­tion has to be ex­treme­ly vig­i­lant be­cause the trends I saw in 1989 are the same I see de­vel­op­ing at this time.

Fi­nal­ly, Mr Toney, the PP is un­der tremen­dous pres­sure at this time. Do you see the regime com­plet­ing its five-year term in of­fice?

I am of the view that the PP will hold to­geth­er. There will be of course dif­fer­ences as in any or­gan­i­sa­tion. In the PNM you have about three fac­tions. We have to han­dle our dif­fer­ences in the PP in a ma­ture way so that there is no dis­re­spect shown to any part­ner, and that we pro­vide to the pop­u­la­tion what we promised to pro­vide which in the main is good gov­er­nance. There are many who doubt whether the PP can in­deed pro­vide good gov­er­nance but I am hop­ing that the Gov­ern­ment would hear what the pop­u­la­tion is say­ing and that they would pull up their socks and get their act to­geth­er.