Plain Talk, Good English

A year ago, Patrick Manning was Prime Minister.  To be precise it was his last day as Prime Minister (for the second time) as a large percentage the electorate agreed with Crazy, among others, and decided that he had to go.

A crushing defeat of the Balisier was the result. Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the People’s Partnership had fulfilled the purpose of their hastily arranged marriage of political convenience.

They formed the Government proclaiming change.

So, one year on, what has changed?

I’m sure the list isn’t exhaustive.

But really, did you really think a drastic change was going to happen?

For all the talk of change, the People’s Partnership was really an old political team that was re-branded and re-marketed with a couple new players.

The truth was, the people of Trinidad and Tobago were prisoners of the moment a year ago. Manning’s popularity was below the doldrums and the Partnership said the magic words.

It was largely overlooked as the nausea of Manning blinded many from it, but the core of the Government harkens back to the NAR and UNC regimes which previously served.

To their credit though, they did try to sell their “new” politics or rather the “We’re not the PNM” tactics, but in reality all they were doing was throwing a blanket over the facts:

There wasn’t that much they could do differently from the past regime. And much of what they promised were not realistic, or even feasible, at least in the short-term.

As this became more apparent, even without the Opposition doing much prodding, the Government started making unnecessary moves which lead to critical public scrutiny and backlash.

A lot of these missteps may be linked to the insecurity the coalition has with regard to leadership.

Kamla may be seen as the leader of the Partnership, but as of now she lacks the presence to get everyone to tow the line.

Apologists may argue that it is the way of the Partnership to let each group remain independent (and arguably each group involved has leadership issues), but even with such a mentality no leader could allow for so much dirty laundry and unforced erratic  decisions to smear the image of a fledging regime.

Further evidence of shortcomings at helm can be seen as many a faux pas made by the Government are directly related to attempts to defend or deflect attention away from the Prime Minister.

Fazeer Mohammed’s dismissal from the CNMG’s First Up! was catalyzed by Suruj Rambachan’s belief that the broadcaster stood against his leader.

Rambachan took it upon himself to address this “loud dissenting voice” and the rest is history.

Anand Ramlogan’s lost and found episode featuring the grand piano that never moved was one of many diversionary tactics employed to smother questions swirling around the leadership.

So too was Kamla’s revelation about the SIA.

Each of these events were cobras that the PP snake-charmers lost control of, leading to a diminished reputation in the public eye.

Would Manning or Panday have resorted to such tactics? Would they have allowed the volatile characters like Herbert Volney and Anil Roberts to stir controversies in the manner they did? It’s no surprise that a Mary King incident finally turned up considering how many loose threads were exposed to the media.

What baffles most about this government, considering how many media personnel they snapped up following their triumph, is just how terrible they’ve been at addressing their misgivings.

So many PP officials have suffered bouts of foot in mouth I’m surprised Health Minister Therese Baptiste-Cornelis hasn’t yet declared there’s an outbreak in cabinet.

To their credit, they’ve rode out most of the rough patches and they do have four years to show that they’ve learnt from their errors.

The question is have they learnt anything?

First year grade: C-