Panday was in his element

THE EDITOR: I do not know what the Prime Minister was hoping to achieve when he unsuccessfully appealed to individual members of the Opposition to vote conscience instead of party in what appeared to be a desperate effort to gain support for the Police Reform Bills. The Prime Minister, as the longer serving member in our national parliament, must know Mr Panday more than anyone else in the political arena. The Prime Minister and his government are faced with an escalating and dangerous crime situation which is obviously out of control. Like any good leader, he knows that his government has to do something to convince the nation that it has a plan to deal with this disturbing situation. Having given his support when he was Opposition Leader to the bills presented by the Panday administration, the Prime Minister felt that, in the national interest, he could have persuaded the Independents and the Opposition to support the bills.

In that context, he proceeded to invite the support of the Leader of the Opposition who had by this time publicly expressed his party’s opposition to the bills, as if it were seeing them for the first time. The Leader of the Opposition, the professional actor it he is, welcomed the opportunity with open arms. He saw this as the ideal opportunity to lift the curtain and enter centre-stage and perform before the national community. The Prime Minister, in spite of his political experience, was unaware of the fact that he was playing bite for bite with a political alligator, and giving him first bite. Mr Panday the aging “Silver Fox” saw this as the opportunity to resurrect himself from the political wilderness where he placed himself by destroying his Government after his first party victory in 2000, a job he orchestrated and almost single-handedly executed.

How on earth could our Prime Minister and his government expect Mr Panday to support these bills and remove himself from centre-stage? It was an excellent opportunity for him to rally his retreating troops and display to the national community that there is some political life before political death which was clearly staring him in the face. The retiring general laundered his political uniforms, proceeded to his armoury, carefully selected his weapons, distributed them to his parasitic generals and went to war, a war the politician won at the expense of the national community. The Leader of the Opposition was, during the last three weeks, in the element he knows and loves best, whatever the issue, whatever the consequences. Like the late Marlon Brando he was acting and playing the role, he read the script well.

From radio to television to the print media, the ubiquitous actor was at his glorious best, condemning and criticising everything he previously stood for. I thought by now our Prime Minister would have known that Mr Panday stands for nothing but Mr Panday. This is the man’s history; ask Mr Robinson, Mr Dookeran, Mr Hudson-Phillips, Mr Ramesh Maharaj, Mr Bhoe Tewarie, Mr Trevor Sudama, Ms Hulsie Bhagan, Mr Kelvin Ramnath, Mr Wade Mark, Mr John Humphrey, Mr Sat Maharaj, and several others too numerous to mention. He accuses the Prime Minister and his government of attempting to establish a police state with bills that were prepared and brought to Parliament by his government under his watch. But briefly let us examine the record of both leaders. First the Prime Minister:

(1) It was certainly an error of political judgment for him to enter and publicly express views on the Marlene Coudray affair.
(2) It was also an error of political judgment for him to present the letter of appointment to Commissioner Snaggs.
(3) The manner in which he and his Government withdrew from the Sectoral wage commitment left much to be desired.

These are minor issues I fault Mr Manning on. None of them are really major political issues; in fact they were all successfully resolved. Now Mr Panday:

(1) It was Mr Panday and his government that extended the term of office of retiring Commissioner of Police Kenny Noor Mohammed, an unprecedented and in my view a totally unnecessary and uncalled for decision — freezing promotion in the police service for two years.
(2) It was Mr Panday and his coalition government that selected Mr A N R Robin-son from his cabinet to the Presidency, an unprecedented and dubious political decision if ever there was one, politicising the highest office in the land. I publicly criticised it at the time, not on the grounds of Mr Robinson’s ability to do the job but on the grounds of politicising the presidency. This like his unnecessary disposing of Ramesh, Trevor, Ralph and so many other politically inept decisions by the “Silver Fox”, will continue to haunt him for the balance of his political life. He, more than anyone else, is the architect of his own political demise.
(3) His behaviour to the Judiciary after a decision was handed down by the High Court in that he considered to be anti-UNC, was yet another unfortunate display as Prime Minister.

It is now for the people to judge these two leaders, their mistakes and, of course, their intentions, for our young minds to determine which of our two leaders possesses the characteristics of a dictator. Whatever we may say or think of Mr Manning, whose decisions and utterances I quite often disagree with, there is nothing dictatorial, devious or undemocratic about him.

FERDIE FERREIRA
Diego Martin