A ZERO-SUM GAME

Whether TT’s peoples are steupsing or laughing at his latest political sleight of hand, the consensus of the majority is, “Like Panday feel he smart, or what!” What else are they to make of Basdeo Panday’s “noble” proposition that St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran assume the post of UNC leader with his, Panday’s blessing, and that in turn he, Dookeran support Panday for party chairman, “to help the UNC through its transition”? Thinking people aren’t fooled for a nanosecond. They know Panday only too well. He can’t step out of the public limelight. And he can’t and won’t let go of the UNC, not the party he says he created out of 16 years of “blood, sweat and tears,” though for the life of me, I can’t remember ever seeing Panday bleeding, perspiring or crying. But for all I know, when he lost office in 2001, the UNC jefe might have sweat while he was trying to slit his wrists, which he only managed to nick: his vision was blurred by the tears streaming down his face.

Blood, sweat and tears aside, though, Panday is well aware that there’s no chance in Louisiana (sorry, hell) that TT is going to vote for the UNC once he’s at the helm of the party. He’s too politically polluted. His own supporters didn’t come and break him out of jail when he didn’t pay his bail earlier this year and if these can turn their backs on him, well he can only imagine what non-UNC people are turning. But, the UNC leader also knows that the swing voters are quite disillusioned with the PNM and are looking for an alternative. So, in the current circumstances, with his back against the wall because financiers, senior MPs and top party people are pressuring him to ride out, what he has done is devise the perfect Pandayan scheme, which in a nutshell is to put the voter-acceptable Dookeran centre stage, while he controls the party from the wings. Crudely put, and with all due respect to Dookeran, Panday plans to ride the St Augustine MP’s back right into Whitehall.

And this is how he probably intends to do it. Panday knows he can use his power to choose the candidates for a general election and that the Constitution states that a Prime Minister isn’t selected because he is party leader, but because he commands the majority in the Lower House. So if what looks like a Dookeran-led UNC/NAR coalition manages to win the next election, Panday, as Couva North MP, can orchestrate a palace coup, oust Dookeran and grab the top post for himself. Or alternatively, he might follow ANR Robinson’s suit, bypass Whitehall and negotiate for himself the Presidency. As it is now, Panday can still lay claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition, even when Dookeran assumes the leadership in October.

Don’t you feel an overwhelming sensation of d?j? vu? Basdeo Panday suspects that a Dookeran-led, UNC-NAR coalition is the only alternative to the PNM, but he wants the coalition on his terms, come what may. It’s all about Panday. It always is, whether he is spouting platitudes about defending the party’s rural base from a politically ambitious Port-of-Spain elite, an elite he embraced from 1995 to 2001; or whether he is pretending that the UNC is a democratic organisation in which the membership really has a say when no one can forget that he rejected the results of the UNC’s last internal election after Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj was elected deputy leader instead of the candidate he was backing, former UNC MP, Carlos John.

I’ve got to believe though that Dookeran much like the rest of the country can see that Panday’s “noble” intentions will lead him straight to Louisiana. And I’ve also got to believe that Dookeran and his people have a plan for Panday just as the UNC jefe has one for them. They have to know that Panday as chairman of the UNC is too close for many voters’ comfort; even if Panday thinks he is outfoxing the people of TT. If Panday is anywhere in the picture in the next general election the UNC will have to fight tooth and nail to hold onto some of its currents seats. With him around, the party will not get the swing votes they need to stop the PNM, particularly as the Prime Minister may decide to call a snap poll to prevent Dookeran from gaining ground.

Do you know though what bothers me most about this entire UNC affair more than Panday and his ludicrously transparent machinations or his fervent desire to mash up the UNC and to leave the country hopeless? I am disturbed by this idea that in order for Winston Dookeran or anyone to assume leadership of the UNC, he must first get Panday’s public endorsement. In other words, these are not free and fair party elections. They’re rigged because the outcome is almost certain. No one dares to oppose Panday’s candidate this time around. Now, doesn’t this mean that Trinidad and Tobago is as politically stunted today as it was back in the days of Dr Eric Williams? Its 21st century immaturity is reflected in the plaintive refrain we use when we contemplate political succession: “But who we go put in his place?” We don’t realise that leaders there will always be.

Dr Eric Williams died didn’t he, without the country dying with him?  So called Fathers of the Nation do eventually perish and their “sons and daughters” take their place. Nevertheless, party elections — both UNC and PNM— often demonstrate how little of the natural order of things we grasp, how much we hang our hopes on one man. Change is seen as a cataclysmic event. Successors here are seldom voted in by the membership, they’re anointed from above. And our leaders don’t like to retire; they prefer to die in office.

Politics in 2005 seems like politics way back when I was a child: a game in which only the dictatorial leader and the sycophantic follower can participate. It was a childish game then and it’s a juvenile game now. And in case some of you were still wondering, it’s the only game Panday knows how to engage in and that’s why he’s playing it at the huge risk of placing himself and his party in a no-win situation. But when has letting the side down ever bothered or stopped the Silver Fox? Never. Not as long as he’s captain, even if this means leading from the bench. suz@itrini.com