Debate This...

All I got from attending the San Fernando leg of the COP leadership debate series are a series of questions, not the least of which being is this new politics we have been promised or business as usual?

I have publicly come out in support of Vernon De Lima for the position of leader of the Party because I think that he more than any of the others have the ability to bring real and measurable change to the Party, but if I were his campaign manager I would have told him to politely excuse himself from the rest of these events and concentrate his time and efforts meeting the members and the voters in cottage meetings and rallies as I cannot see any value to these staged performances; all they seem to do is put the candidates on show as some macabre version of themselves where they contort to rewrite history to fit their desired role or to fool and distract the members outright.

Watching the actual event I had to surmise that somewhere in the leadership there is someone who is of the impression that if less is more, imagine how much more more itself could be, or how else can one explain the sheer amount of debates that are being held which are doing less to make the candidates positions on important issues known and more to demonstrate to people why they don't like politics and politicians in the first place.

An event that should have been branded The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Also Ran, all four candidates for leadership failed to deliver and I blame the format, the organizers and the moderator for the failure of the event. The lack of crowd control as both the Ramadhar and Roberts 'rent a crowds' made their voices heard as per their pre-arranged agreement, the behavior of the Anil Robert's faction who worked hard at making sure that decency had no place in a COP sponsored event, the failure of Sunil Ramdeen to get Prakash and Anil to answer the questions as asked, and the lack of any real substance to the event guaranteed that it underwhelmed.

If we had emptied the room of special interests, support groups and campaign teams tonight all we would have been left with was the media, six or seven stragglers and the nuts man, so tell me again where's the new politics?

For my part and unless they are prepared to set up a wrestling ring for the next one and stage a tag team match between the four candidates I will not be attending any more of these as I will never get back the waste of life and breaths that this one cost.

Politics in this country disembowels the people of any remnant of integrity and you cannot help feel a little dirtier every time you attend one of these events. I can only imagine what is must feel like for the members of the PNM and the UNC, who are not burdened or don't even care to at least pretend to want something like decency in exchange for their part in the dance. Basdeo Panday twisted someone else's quote to say Politics has a morality of its own, and the balking revulsion and subsequent upheaval to that comment led us to the birth of the COP.

Tonight I think we came full circle,  and the Congress of the People, if it continues along this path, may well grow to live up to the Silver Fox's prophetic words.