Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - Aujourd'hui 06:37

'Doctor Politics' ­– Rowley style

THE EDITOR: Prof Lloyd Best coined the phrase “Doctor Politics” in the 1970s to describe the political shenanigans of the late Dr Eric Williams. Over the last two weeks this country has witnessed Doctor Politics, Rowley style, at its worst. It was manifestly apparent that the registered members of the PNM would not have supported Prime Minister Rowley’s "Gary Sobers," Stuart Young, for political leader at the party’s 51st annual convention and internal election carded for November 17 last year. In the face of the impending "run-out" of Young, Dr Rowley hastily abandoned the convention and election. Soon thereafter, Ferdie Ferreira, a founding member of the PNM, voiced what is common knowledge within party circles – that Young is no favourite in the party. To quote Ferreira: “There is a level of dissatisfaction, discomfort and disquiet among party members and officers over PM Rowley’s hint that Young is his possible replacement. “It’s no secret there are quite a few members in the party – and prominent members – who are openly saying they would not support Stuart Young to succeed Rowley.” On December 30 last year, against the run of play, after some four years of inertia in the sphere of crime-fighting, the government surprisingly declared a state of emergency (SoE), allegedly due to intelligence that there was impending criminal activity that posed a clear and present danger to public safety, and the government was acting decisively in the public interest to avert this danger to the citizenry. The nation was thus plunged into as state of heightened alert, during which many of the enshrined guarantees under the Constitution are suspended. The much anticipated press conference held, not as expected by the Prime Minister to whom the nation spontaneously endears in moments of national crisis, but by none other than Energy Minister Young assuming the role of acting Attorney General, with Reginald Armour, the substantive AG, conveniently out of the jurisdiction. To imbue the fiction with an aura of legitimacy, the embattled Fitzgerald Hinds, ever the patsy, entered an appearance that was purely ceremonial and Young proceeded to weave a tale of perceived retribution by certain criminal elements in the country, sufficiently grave so as to pose a clear and present danger to public safety and by extension national security. The naïve and unsuspecting public expressed a fleeting optimism that perhaps at long last the government had awoken from its slumber and was once and for all frontally tackling the criminal elements in the country. However, the only purpose and intent of the SoE was to crush any intended protest over Young’s appointment by the PNM caucus in the egg before it hatched. The PNM caucus, comprising the party’s MPs and senators, routinely convenes to select speakers for debates and for joint select committee meetings of Parliament. The caucus possesses no constitutional power to select or endorse a political leader, let alone a prime minister. Young had the audacity to label members who were exercising their democratic right to vie for positions during the last PNM internal election as "pothounds," even as he lacks the testicular fortitude to compete fairly in a leadership race in the very party of which he is chairman. That Rowley would treat the party membership with such utter contumely, not even bothering to feign deference and respect concern for the time-honoured and hallowed party conventions as the only constitutional means by which the political leader is selected, but that he would dare to subvert the party’s democratic traditions under the pretext of furthering national security imperatives is unforgivable. That a sitting prime minister could engineer such an outrage is, to say the very least, shocking. This hoodwinking of the nation possesses all of the irony of Shakespearian tragedy, writ large, for within hours of the SoE being declared, special state prosecutor and attorney Randall Hector was gunned down as he left the Seventh Day Adventist Church on Stanmore Avenue in the nation’s capital in the wee hours of New Year’s Day. Unsurprisingly, this calculated and brazen attack evoked no word of sympathy from either Hinds or Young, both of whom are themselves attorneys. Since Hector’s brutal slaying, the murder rate continues to abound, giving the lie to the claim that the government implemented the SoE to tackle the criminal elements head-on. Young, with Rowley’s blessings, is attempting to become prime minister by sleight of hand. PETER AC TAYLOR attorney, former legal affairs minister The post 'Doctor Politics' ­– Rowley style appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.