Category: Election 2010
Leader of the Opposition coalition, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, reminded her audience on a campaign platform recently that you should judge a person by what they do. She used the old adage: 'By their deeds, you shall know them.'
The PNM leadership has a lot to explain from a dispassionate review of their terms in office since 2001, especially the treatment of Dr Keith Rowley after he became their UDeCOTT corruption whistle-blower. But the adage cuts both ways, and if applied to the UNC element of the coalition, there is also aq glaring concern.
Journalist and long-time researcher of alleged FIFA corruption, Mr Andrew Jennings, gave a presentation in Miami on 04 May 2010 at the 8th Annual OffshoreAlert Financial Due Diligence Conference. His presentation was to have been carried live by the state-owned television company, CNMG, but the link was lost just as his presentation was due to start and was never repaired. {Read more}
According to members of the new political coalition in T&T, Mr Calder Hart is expected to return to the country on Monday 3rd May 2010 to be formally charged with perjury. The COP's Vernon de Lima is reported to have said:
"We understand that an application will thereafter be made to gag discussion on issues relating to Calder Hart. That means to say that a judge of the High Court will be approached by application that an order be made that nobody in Trinidad and Tobago, including any politician, any newspaper, media, can say anything about Mr Hart, having regard to the fact that he is under criminal charge ...That application will be made ex parte - that is without the judge hearing the input of anybody else but Mr Hart’s attorney."
So there is fear that, if the ex parte gag order is granted, from 03 May 2010, no-one will be able to write or mention Mr Calder Hart in the media without risking legal sanctions. If this were true, perhaps the realms of eastern royalty and magic can provide a suitable workaround.
The country of Thailand has implemented lèse majesté laws since 1908. Lèse majesté is the crime of violating majesty, an offense against the dignity of a reigning sovereign or against a state. There is current turmoil amongst the business class of Thailand relating to their fear of a destabilising royal succession - the current, widely beloved King of Thailand is 82 years old and his prospective successors aren't all popular - but the lèse majesté laws discourage frank talk about it. According to the Economist's leader on 20 Mar 2010, "As father fades, his children fight": {Read more}
Funny how life unfolds. Two weeks after writing how one should judge exiting the political stage, there are events causing me to ponder on political entries.
An unfolding campaign issue is the resignation of High Court judge Herbert Volney and early retirement of Acting Senior Magistrate Ramraj Harripersad in order to run for political office in this year's General Election as potential UNC candidates. The Hon. Prime Minister raised concerns about the effect this may have had on the judiciary, especially with regards to judgements against the government, and Chief Justice Ivor Archie expressed a number of concerns regarding the perception of impartiality. Head of the Law Association, Martin Daly, is due to release their official stance on this in the coming days.
While I await further information from folks in legal circles, I have some questions as an observer.
If there's a risk of bias when one goes from being a judge to being a politician, why should it not exist in the other direction? For example, why should one not be concerned about Gillian Lucky's current ability as a temporary judge given her previous career as a politician?
If the matter is about timing - between exiting the judiciary and entering politics - why should a period of time reduce the perceived risk of bias during the judicial career? Further, if time does reduce the risk, how much time is enough time? {Read more}
It would be nice if a couple professional journalists in T&T could produce a weekly fact-check column for the duration of the elections. The idea being that they would select statements/policies from each of the platforms over the previous week, check for supporting evidence and then report whether the statements were true or the policies realistic. It would also test if a candidate had a reasonable grasp of their constituents' issues.
I gave a tongue-in-cheek example when I extended BC Pires's commentary on Ishmael Samad's sledgehammer tilt at Calder Hart, poking holes in the UNC's repeated fears about the current state of the Treasury. Let me give another, straighter example.
I've just witnessed the Hon. Minister of Foreign Affairs and MP for Pt Fortin being interviewed on a breakfast talk-show. She asked her constituents, in response to a caller's question, to wait just a little longer for the Pt Fortin hospital, since funding for it was included in the most-recent budget. See the video on C TV's online video-on-demand (VOD) service - relative to the start of the video clip (which shows the entire 3-hour programme), her interview begins about 36 minutes in, while her comment about the hospital occurs about 67 minutes in.
So, just how long have Pt Fortin's constituents been waiting?
The following are taken from official Budget Statements that are available on the Ministry of Finance's website, specifically for Pt Fortin's health facilities: {Read more}
- 2002 Oct - Promised general improvement of health facilities, but no specific mention of Pt Fortin
There is a wonderful lobby underway for a televised Election Debate in T&T involving the candidates applying to become our next Prime Minister. In my view, I don't think T&T is ready for it at this time, and realistically, I don't think there is enough time to organise a proper debate. However, I wish to propose a solution.
Election debates are meant to help voters learn more about the candidates and the policies they stand for, hopefully leading to an informed voting decision. It requires candidates to be practiced in defending their policies, track records and promises in a manner that none of them have been subjected to in T&T so far. Not even by the media. Parliamentary 'debate' is not good practice because members, lately, read out lengthy contributions from pre-written scripts (which is actually against the rules, but no-one seems to care). No MP knows how to give a proper response to very challenging questions in under three minutes - just read any of the Q&A articles published in the Sunday newspapers. If any of the candidates go into a proper election debate with only Parliament as practice, they would be woefully unprepared to respond quickly and cogently to statements made by their competitors. Result: the debate would collapse into a glorified platform for unhelpful rhetoric and voters would mistakenly conclude that all our candidates are incapable of running a country (when really they're only incapable of handling or communicating effectively during a debate).
{Read more}
BC Pires, in his usual eloquent style, wrote about Ishmael Samad's recent protest against Calder Hart. I think we can expand on his list of persons that Ishmael should aim his sledgehammer at.
Swing at Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira, who side-stepped questions about UDeCOTT on C TV's breakfast show earlier this week by saying none of her constituents raised it as an issue in her many walkabouts since 2007. She actually said she can't understand how folks could accuse the PNM of squandermania. Whisper UDeCOTT and all PNM representatives break eye contact. Ishmael will have to pick one reason for swinging because, frankly, the Finance Minister has given so many in her shortened term of office, his arm might dislocate if he swiped at everything she did.
A special swipe is reserved for the PNM Youth Vice Chairman, Mr Adrian Winter, who appeared on the same breakfast show after the Finance Minister to support her vacuous statement with one of his own. He advised youths to ignore the UDeCOTT issue with the phrase: 'Leave it to the older people!' For all we know, his university lecturers must be swinging their heads against a wall seeing this product of their teaching on national TV. So, to Mr Winter, youths are old enough to vote but not old enough to say how they feel about corruption. Somebody should ask him to return his degree. {Read more}
Today, someone asked me why I had not written anything about the upcoming General Election here in Trinidad and Tobago. My response was that there was not much worthwhile to write. The image to the right, detritus after the last General Election, remains the only image I thought worthy of sharing in this post.
To date, I haven't read through the media much more than political strategies. Alliances. Candidates. The key platform for anyone not PNM seems to be, simply, "We're not the PNM". And the platform for the PNM seems to remain, "We're the PNM".
Some people laugh when I say it is the same khaki panties but the statement isn't made in the spirit of fun. This election doesn't seem to be as much about issues as it is about betting on horses. In fairness, some people who bet on horses seem better informed than the average voter in Trinidad and Tobago.
Someone, please, show me a platform and make the platform for a political party the center of discussion. Let us discuss issues. Let us discuss the future.
And that is the message that politicians should be getting from voters. Tell us about what will be done about water issues - a very hot (and dry) topic at this time. Tell us about a real vision of Trinidad and Tobago in the future.
Meanwhile, I'll continue to ignore all the rest of the political detritus in the media and on the street. There's enough to trip over on the road; I don't need more political banners. Democracy starts with informed discussion. Maybe it would be a good time for someone to start.
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