Wrong & More Wrong..... (Roody iz You?)

I have used this saying before but I use it here again because it is most apt -  that while a bulldog could beat a skunk in a a fight anytime, he avoids it most times because he knows it isn't worth the stink. In the same way I find myself wondering at the way the entire Marlene Coudray matter was handled by the UNC, and while I have taken the leadership of the Congress of the People publicly and continuously to task over their clumsy, reactionary handling of the matter, the reality of the situation is, had the UNC handled the matter differently we would not even be here in the first place and all of this stink could have been avoided. What could have been the thinking in that camp after they short listed Marlene as the perfect candidate to throw at whoever the PNM put up to contest the rumored coming soon by election for San Fernando East? Did it not cross Roodal Moonilal's mind (the one to whom the poaching is ascribed) that rather than 'seduce' her from a partner party in the coalition that it might have been better if handled diplomatically? At a meeting of leaders perhaps, where, in exchange for Marlene the COP could have been given senate seats and/or state board appointments as, if not compensation then at least out of respect? Was it that the COP was believed to be already broken and in the pockets of the UNC or worse, based on Prakash's and Anil's unbelievably self destructive support of the UNC during the campaign to defeat the vote of no confidence, completely capitulated and on the way to unification?

All of those questions will have to be answered by others much closer to the events as they unfolded at the time, but looked at dispassionately there is no way to avoid placing responsibility squarely at Moonilal's feet and who, I daresay, for his disrespectful mishandling of the situation and his complete lack of the political sobriety required in delicate matters such as these, if anyone should be fired from the government it should be him. His lack of sophistication if not outright disdain for his coalition partners is at the heart of the entire clusterfiretruck and the Prime Minister owes it to her coalition partners and the country as a whole to fire him outright for the mess she finds herself and her government in.

Make no mistake this is not over, and while many within the UNC would like to consider the matter firmly swept under the rug and moved on from, the other members of the partnership are still smarting from the abrasion and the population as a whole are now looking at Kamla and her government in a whole new and unflattering light. If the partnership breaks over this issue the reaction to the slight cannot be given more precedence than the slight itself and the Prime Minister needs to earn her title now more than ever. To the members of the COP their party is still a party in its own right and deserves respect if nothing else.

Surely she (Kamla) herself is politically astute enough to know that any blowback from here damages her more than anyone else, and she should be the one to insist, if only because it is the decent thing to do, that the squeaky wheel should get the grease. His high handed poaching without consultation of a coalition partner party's member reeks of a dictatorial arrogance that we were assured we were voting out when we voted Patos and his cabal out and I strongly suggest, if only for the stink that this whole fiasco has caused and the threat to the stability of the government, Roodal Moonilal should be fired from the Cabinet immediately.