Calling Buffy!

“Panday is irrelevant!” people keep telling me. Oh really? No one can deny that the UNC leader has lost his all street-cred and most of his rural base. Every new opinion poll shows Basdeo Panday’s popularity taking a fresh dive. The latest survey conducted by the North American Caribbean Teachers’ Association (NACTA) predicted Panday would be very lucky if under his mistrusted stewardship, the United National Congress won 12 of the 41 constituencies in the 2007 general election. Yet I would not label Basdeo Panday irrelevant — vampiric perhaps, because he is draining the little life left in the UNC’s moribund body and because he will not stop his blood-sucking until the party is completely dead- but irrelevant, no. Panday can never be immaterial to TT politics, not while he has his fangs sunk into the UNC, not until the 15 MPs in his parliamentary “carcass” lay him to rest in his political coffin and seal it with long, thick silver nails. How can Basdeo Panday be inconsequential when he leads the official Opposition?

The principle role of the Opposition in the Westminster system is to act as a government in waiting, or as UK public law lecturer Hilaire Barnett neatly puts it, “to be ready at any time to take office should the government seek dissolution of office.” If the People’s National Movement administration collapses tomorrow (and I started writing this column before it was announced the Prime Minister needed a pacemaker) Trinidad and Tobago, a society seemingly swaying on its last legs, will take a final tumble. This is not 2001. Three years ago, when Basdeo Panday’s regime fell and he was forced to call for Parliament to be abrogated, the then PNM Opposition was ready to grab the reins of power. Its leader, Patrick Manning, though not the most popular, efficient or colourful of politicians wasn’t carrying around the heavy baggage Panday now is.

Manning, in his first carnation as PM had made many errors and after his party’s loss of government in 1995 should have resigned, but he had not presided over a corrupt regime. Panday, in contrast to Manning, cannot try to reinvent himself. He cannot come back in another prime ministerial life, not in Trinidad and Tobago. If the UNC had to assume power tomorrow and Panday was still its leader there’d be a revolution in this country. Panday, while he remains where he is, is a threat to TT’s democracy and stability. That’s why he’s not irrelevant and that’s why his 15 MPs must bury their sanguivorous leader, though none seems to possess the guts, will, strength, or skill to do the necessary grave digging. They don’t even have the nerve to buy garlic. No, these 15 prefer to hang around Panday like a pack of zombies, spellbound by a leader sucking the half-dead lifeblood out of them, the party and by extension, the nation.

The stench of death within and around the UNC is so strong Opposition MPs are disjointedly and half-heartedly carrying out their other key functions: scrutiny of the executive and representation of the people. Their inspection of the PNM administration has chiefly consisted of filing hundreds of oral and written questions to ministers. While these have undoubtedly extracted a wealth of information from PNM ministers, the UNC has not employed this data sufficiently on behalf of the citizens of TT, to press the Government into action. The UNC has seemed more Panday-serving in its repeated cries of racial discrimination, its threats of civil disobedience and its pouting in Parliament. The sole issue of public interest on which the Opposition has consistently taken the Government to task has been the softest of political targets: the PNM’s poor record on crime and its weak ministers of national security whose crime plans appear to consist principally in meaningless slogans such as “the criminals have crossed the line.” For Panday, every killing, every kidnapping and every ridiculous pronouncement from a PNM national security minister is a possible political resuscitator.

“Manning has no plan for dealing with crime,” he immediately responded when asked to comment on the killing of former President Arthur NR Robinson’s bodyguard. Other matters of national significance such as the sale of Caroni and the Prime Minister’s announcement to takeover the Red House have been shrugged off by the UNC’s carefree blood-sucker. In the case of Caroni, workers were shocked to see the man they had helped lift to high office let them down so callously. Panday never put up a proper fight. As for Manning’s Red House ambitions, Panday has behaved as if he could care less what happens to the nation’s legislative branch. Couldn’t a UNC MP have brought a motion of contempt of Parliament against the Prime Minister? The legislature decided to renovate the Red House for Parliament’s use and Patrick Manning cannot override or annul its decision. Had the UNC been functioning as a real Opposition, the matter of the Red House might already have been before the House Committee of Privileges. But why stand up for Caroni workers and the Red House when you can easily sit back and hit the Government on crime or file questions for oral and written answer?

As for the Integrity Act, had the UNC spoken out sooner, the declaration forms would have been approved in time for public officials to file for 2002. Instead, the Opposition became an accomplice — witting or not — to the PNM’s filibustering of the forms and thus, everyone missed the 2002 deadline. Then, as if to prove it were genuinely interested in enforcing the Act, the UNC filed for judicial review of the 2002 exemption. Meanwhile, UNC chairman Wade Mark was sending a distinct signal. According to Mark, the party had problems with the forms and might not make today’s deadline for filing for 2003. This after the forms were inspected by a Joint Select Committee of Parliament of which Mark was a member and which met with the Integrity Commissioners to “clarify areas of concern.” His leader had to publicly and quickly counter Mark’s claim by stating that UNC MPs would definitely meet the cut-off date. PNM Minister Ken Valley made Mark and the rest of the UNC members look like a bunch of mooks — and they weren’t even  wearing dashikis or dhotis —  when he told Newsday he had long filed his form as he had during past years and he didn’t see what all “the fuss was about.”

The UNC holds its national congress next month. The meeting will be more of a seance since the post of political leader is not up for grabs. The parasitical Panday has already announced his intention to mislead the party into the 2007 election, leaving many citizens who are dissatisfied with the PNM, currently feeling they are living in a leadership vacuum. So, Basdeo Panday irrelevant? No. Ask those in the Balisier. He’s their greatest asset. Or ask those who want TT to have an Opposition credible and strong enough to do its job and to be a government in waiting. He’s their biggest liability. Finally, ask his hosts, the people’s whose marrow he is draining, the UNC and the body politic. He’s their worst nightmare. Basdeo Panday will only be irrelevant when he stops his feeding. But he can’t. The UNC’s devilish overseer has been sucking the political blood out of others for a long time and he’s discovered it’s not just his favourite type; it’s the only kind of fluid that keeps his indifferent, selfish heart pumping. suz@itrini.com