Horse Meat & Tobago Politics...

The people of Trinidad & Tobago have a way of dealing with adversity that is unique to us and is probably responsible in no small measure as to why we're still around despite all of the abuses we have had to endure 'ever since we born.' Take the saying 'what doh kill does fatten' for instance, applied metaphorically in a myriad of circumstances, it is best used for tolerating and excusing the accidental ingestion of something other than what we thought we were eating in the first place; in a world where some of the oldest and strongest brands have been caught passing off equine flesh as bovine flesh (trading horse-meat for cow), this essentially 'Trini' quality may be just the attitude required to save the proverbial day.

In similar fashion the recent Tobago electoral experience is being re-packaged after the fact as something other than what it was and sold as something else, and because of its potential to lead many a pundit and political leader astray I thought I should shine the bright light of reason on it before things go too far. First off and foremost, there was no special intelligence demonstrated in that election and to equate it as such is to choose deception over reality. What happened in Tobago was a closing of ranks against a central government widely believed to have lost its moorings and a rejection of the 'bribe & buy' politicking that many in the UNC war room wants to believe is responsible for the success the UNC & Friends enjoyed twice in 2010. As that is a bandage for another wound at another time we will leave it alone, but as the PNM members in Trinidad has been walking around with swollen chests pumping fists in the air as if what happened in Tobago was destined to happen in Trinidad anytime soon I want to caution them that they may well be in for a rude surprise. Make no mistake, this arrogance of denial, this unwillingness to deal with reality is what more than anything else cost the PNM the general election in 2010  and if they continue along this road it will cost them any future elections they contest as well. If they could not or would not see then that the entire 2010 defeat was a referendum against the then Prime Minister Patrick Manning what is anyone else to do? Back to this issue and important to the point, demographically Trinidad is an entire different ethnic kettle of fish than Tobago, and there may not be enough ships at sea to scare the current PNM back into Office.

I have been telling Dr. Rowley since the party's humiliating trouncing in May that his one and only job was/is to destroy Patrick Manning. Completely and with prejudice. To uproot and discard him as solely responsible for the party's miserable fortunes and send him on his way. But like the political neophyte he is and perhaps because he beset on all sides by Manning loyalists as advisors  he continues to seek the man's blessing as if this has any electoral value outside of the party faithful. How does he not get that posing for photo ops in some macabre 'transition' of PNM power works against him? How doers he not see that being Manning's anointed heir is not a blessing but a curse with the much required swing voter he desperately needs if he is ever to see the corridors of power?

No, Patrick Manning's endorsement is all horse meat in the real world and Rowley needs to get it before it is too late. If he thinks Amery Browne's balisier tie is just a fashion statement he is far more foolish than I thought and while the daggers may be sheathed at this point, he better demonstrate some political awareness if he wants Trinidad to take him seriously. I hear PNM pundits around me say Trini's 'coil like mapipire' waiting for elections and I wonder on what are they basing this? Are they even listening to the people?

Keithos plain talk, if you continue as you're going you dead already; if you do not purge the party of Manningites left over and looming just behind the scenes, you dead already; if you cannot rebuild a 'New' PNM in your image and likeness complete with internal party constitutional reform that allows for a sitting PNM Prime Minister to be challenged for leadership you done dead already, because THAT is the indelible legacy of Patrick Mervyn Augustus Manning, of a rogue and arrogant leader with clear despotic tendencies  intent on his agenda and he doh like it tough. Trinis rank and file have no interest in any more of that, and if you think you can avoid the bitter medicine required or that you can just wait out this government's mistakes, my best suggestion to you is to get comfortable on that side of the House. Until the PNM demonstrates its contrition, spends its time in the wilderness and rebuilds from the ashes, it will be placing all of its hopes and aspirations on the voters inability to tell horse meat from beef at election time.