Political Stones... (Leadership Crisis COP)

Growing up in Woodbrook there was no shortage of characters and one of them in particular has been brought to my mind by recent events, a real little wanna be 'bad john' we used to call 'Stones.' Stones was notorious for pushing fight with anybody who he disagreed with, but once it looked like a fight was actually about to start he used to run home for his big brother to handle the actual fighting for him. Both Congress of the People political leader Prakash Ramadhar and its Chairman Joseph Toney have reminded me of 'Stones' since this whole Marlene Coudray fiasco began as, despite all their rum talk and bluster about poaching and consequences of action, they keep turning to and trotting out the same Vernon De Lima on the talk show circuit to make sense publicly of what it is they say they are trying to say and do. Coming across as independent, forthright and honest, De Lima is quite possibly the last voice of credibility at the leadership level of the party, while Prakash and Toney appear wishy-washy at best and weak politically. You cannot play man and draw a line in the sand only to turn around and give the onlookers a 'resounding maybe' and a 'probably for sure,' and you cannot call someone out on abuses you accuse them of and then give the population a 'perhaps probably' and a 'definite I don't know.' Those are the acts of the incompetent and surely even the most die-hard supporters can see that.

As a direct consequence of the last two internal elections a purging of personalities within the party took place that concentrated the party's authority into the hands of a politically juvenile few. Stalwarts and action figures like Robert Mayers and Wendy Lee Yeun have been sidelined and silenced, and even firebrand Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan seems to be picking her fights very, very carefully so as not to offend anyone within and without. Now the consequences of such a retrograde development is rearing its ugly head as when the fight is raging all around there is no one to call with any real stones for back up. If strong fences make good neighbours then surely strong parties would make healthy coalitions. The COP needs to decide at a membership level what exactly it wants to be and move in that direction. It is not bound by its MP's as they could ALL walk and the party would still thrive. The lack of real, purposeful leadership and an absence of party machinery is what is hurting the party badly, and it is this that needs to be addressed with some urgency and a professional and seasoned understanding of how these things work.

In my opinion the membership of the COP have little choice but to bring a vote of no confidence in both the Political Leader AND the Party's Chairman and move to fresh elections to broaden and re-open the party to new and forward thinking ideas. The obvious choice to lead the party out of the doldrums it finds itself in is Vernon De Lima and he needs to be allowed to lead at the soonest possible time if the party is to survive. With Prakash Ramadhar demonstrating himself to be politically weak and other leadership hopeful Anil Roberts coming across as more and more of a flake every-time he opens his mouth, I cannot for the life of me understand why the (remaining) members are not beating a path to Mr. De Lima's door to beg him to lead before he too gives up in disgust. Looking back on life's lessons all those years ago I learnt early on that it wasn't enough to say you had stones when pushing fight, but you better have had them when fight really start. If Vernon De Lima is the man with the stones to lead the party then by all means and for the love of God let him, because as is clearly plain for even the blind to see, the other options seems to be licks, licks and more licks to come.