Panday predictions

Let me guess. He is ready to reclaim the party. He has been advised that his appeal will succeed. He intends to take out Dookeran, and hopefully reclaim his supporters. He also intends to eliminate all of those who betrayed him in one fell swoop. He is also an employer of the strategies of Dr Eric Eustace

Williams. I predict this general strategy. Step one: Stop the party from making a decision on its own. They must understand that they need the wisdom of the maximum leader to make a wise decision. Step two: Communicate subliminally that he is more magnanimous than the collective rest. Step three: Convey the idea that he intended to step down but those who floated to the surface in the pool of leadership are incompetent to take charge. Step four: Let it be known that he is prepared to make the sacrifice and return to leadership while giving the impression that he will do so only because it is necessary to save the party and the country and only if the membership endorses him. Step five: Seed the idea among key sycophants that they must organise a groundswell of support calling for his return. Step six: Decide that he and he alone will meet with Dookeran to try to bring about unity but while doing so make scathing attacks on him, hinting that he has no intention of reconciling: “I am hearing that he intends to set up a separate Party.”

Step seven: Hint that Dookeran is part of a wider plan. That he is setting a “trap” and his real purpose is to disunite the party. Step eight: Make veiled comments which plant the idea that Dookeran’s Trojan Horse is already behind the ramparts. The enemy is in the bowels of the party and if they are not stopped; they will come out when the time is right to slay the faithful and destroy the Party. Had they not done that in the past? Can you trust them now? Step nine: Extend the concept of infernal conspiracy by suggesting that Dookeran has allies in the camp of the arch-enemy, the PNM. Step ten: When the time is right allow the Party to expel Dookeran and reassume the political leadership at great personal sacrifice. This puts him in a position to decide who faces the elections as a candidate of the party. Step eleven: When the time comes for the nomination of candidates he will allay anxieties of certain persons who were not selected to contest a safe seat with a quiet assurance that they are being reserved for high office otherwise. This will be to ensure that their supporters vote for the party. Step twelve: Alternatively, if there is a groundswell in favour of anyone whom he did not anoint, he will call them “nee-ma-ka-rams” and make it clear that he will not face the polls with them.

A MERVYN RAWLINS

Diego Martin