The leader of the op­po­si­tion was crit­i­cal of the new cab­i­net.

De­scribed as be­ing “stacked with more re­cy­cled failed mem­bers some hav­ing to clean up their own mes, now they have no one to blame as they were in of­fice for the past five years.”

I agree the blame game mantra of the gov­ern­ment would now hold less wa­ter and in Par­lia­ment we kept hear­ing ad nau­se­am about the “evils” of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment.

This may be good pol­i­tics but an ad­min­is­tra­tion of five years can­not keep point­ing the cor­rup­tion fin­ger at the UNC as four fin­gers can point back to decades of PNM cor­rup­tion.

Of­ten at ques­tion time the modus operan­di of some min­is­ters to­wards the op­po­si­tion is to state how stu­pid the ques­tion was, then give a half way an­swer then bring up some old cor­rup­tion/fail­ure claim when the op­po­si­tion was in of­fice.

Well hope­ful­ly we will now hear less of the lat­ter.

I how­ev­er must dis­agree with the leader of the op­po­si­tion be­cause hav­ing the pre­vi­ous mem­bers serve in their min­istries adds con­ti­nu­ity to their over­all plans.

Both the at­tor­ney gen­er­al and min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty have brought laws claim­ing we would soon see the re­sults.

Well the coun­try can­not wait any longer. We need the laws and dreams ped­dled by them to kick in. If they don’t his­to­ry would re­mem­ber them as fail­ing to de­liv­er.

I look at the dream team of both lead­ers.

Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Biss­esar was ac­cused of hav­ing a kinder­garten team of in­ex­pe­ri­enced can­di­dates but least we for­get one of our most ex­pe­ri­enced lead­ers, the late Patrick Man­ning start­ed as an MP at 27 old.

Mrs Per­sad-Biss­esar’s pre­vi­ous sen­a­to­r­i­al ap­point­ments saw hon­est young hard work­ing sen­a­tors like Sean Sobers, Ani­ta Haynes and Sad­dam Ho­sein be­ing giv­en a chance.

Some have to prove to us they can de­liv­er as rep­re­sent­ing their con­stituents.

Drop­ping some of the fa­mil­iar faces could be a com­bi­na­tion of putting new faces which were not taint­ed by al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion as well as the Machi­avel­lian con­cept of sur­round­ing her­self with per­sons less like­ly to chal­lenge her lead­er­ship po­si­tion.

This is noth­ing new, we saw the then op­po­si­tion leader Man­ning dis­tanc­ing him­self from the old PNM guard and bring­ing in new faces af­ter the NAR vic­to­ry at the polls.

In 1987 we saw a rel­a­tive­ly un­known vol­ca­nol­o­gist emerge as an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and is now our sec­ond term prime min­is­ter.

His pub­lic spats with his leader were viewed by some as the heights of neemakaramism or strength and in­de­pen­dence by oth­ers.

Now the pop­u­lar Robert Le Hunte has paid the price of in­de­pen­dence of thought.

Dis­agree­ments with­in the par­ty are noth­ing new.

The late Muriel Don­awa-Mc­David­son had warned of the emer­gence of “Patrick’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.” She was placed in the po­lit­i­cal dog house.

The in­tel­lec­tu­al­ism of Dr Bhoe Tewarie, or­a­to­ry style of Gan­ga Singh and in­ci­sive con­tri­bu­tion of Dr Fuad Khan will sure­ly be missed.

Lead­ers have to recog­nise the po­lit­i­cal par­a­sites who latch on to them and chose those who are best giv­en to ser­vice of coun­try.

We ex­pect lead­ers to look af­ter our wel­fare and do what us best for the peo­ple they rep­re­sent.

There have been calls for Mrs Per­sad-Biss­esar to re­sign as op­po­si­tion leader. Those mak­ing such calls should con­test the par­ty elec­tion.

Mrs Per­sad-Biss­esar had the for­ti­tude to chal­lenge the sil­ver fox for lead­er­ship of the par­ty.

The prime min­is­ter al­so an­nounced this is his last term.

The ques­tion of a suc­ces­sor al­so has to be con­sid­ered.

Well re­spect­ed Mrs Pen­ne­lope Beck­les had shown an in­ter­est be­fore. The young bright Dr Amery Browne has a track record of ser­vice, while the Dy­nasty ef­fect can see Bri­an Man­ning hav­ing a head start, but he may have to prove to the pop­u­la­tion he can serve as his fa­ther has done.

I have seen two re­spectable per­sons on the land­scape, Clarence Ramb­harat and Sean Sobers. Both have con­tributed well in the sen­ate.

When Dr Er­ic Williams died we lost the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­al­ly unite the coun­try. Back then both long serv­ing mem­bers Ka­mal Mo­hamned and Er­rol Ma­habir were by­passed for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion.

I have a dream that one day an East In­di­an like Clarence Ramb­harat can lead the PNM and an Afro Trinida­di­an like Sean Sobers can lead the UNC.

Imag­ine what would hap­pen to the eth­nic vot­ers of both par­ties.