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Dear Kamla,
Fifteen years ago, at the time of your first election as prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago (PM), I greeted you in a column published on 13 June 2010, in which I explained why I may take the liberty of addressing you in familiar terms.
Photo: Sunil Lalla.
Let me begin on this second occasion of your election as prime minister by unreservedly congratulating you and the United National Congress (UNC).
My 23 years of service as a weekly columnist in this newspaper provides a ready historical perspective from which to greet you, and one that is enhanced by the footnotes to my columns that are contained in the two volumes of The Daly Commentaries.
In my column last week, I did not intend to be short on congratulations. Perhaps you and many others would understand why it was important to nail down the responsibility of former prime minister Dr Keith Rowley for the disastrous performance of the People’s National Movement (PNM), the UNC’s rival, in the 2025 General Elections.
Photo: OPM.
Ironically, in my column of June 2010, I had suggested when Rowley became leader of the PNM that he “formally commit the PNM to the eradication of the use of contempt, personal attack and bombastic spectacle as tools of political speech”.
It is for that reason that, while expressly welcoming you back as prime minister last week, I chose to highlight my gratitude that you struck several conciliatory notes in your remarks immediately after you were sworn in.
The UNC and PNM remain essentially tribally-based parties that can collect cross-over voters from time to time, particularly when things are going exceptionally badly for us.
Photo: UNC.
If you maintain your conciliatory stance, it will give the UNC prospects of becoming a broader-based national party because people are hurting and might put aside visceral feelings, once they receive the empathy that you have promised.
In my column of June 2010, I also thanked you for your conduct at that time, which brought some “restoration of civility in the conduct of public affairs”.
Unfortunately, it already appears that you will have your work cut out to restrain members of your government from falling immediately back into the old blame and shame game, as typified by their theatrical initiation last week of a back and forth about the alleged poor state of Whitehall and the prime minister’s official residence.
Photo: UNC.
Perhaps they were releasing a smokescreen for something else.
I am growing weary of sometimes being a seer man. But without a fundamental increase in accountability, instead of “blame and shame”, I am not optimistic that things will improve over the next six months—the initial time frame within which you, Kamla, promised that we “will live in a safer and happier Trinidad and Tobago”.
Moreover, in another column published on 5 December 2010, entitled Only Six Months, I was compelled after completion of six months in your first term to express concern that we were going “to bump along the same old rutted roads”—after six months of indecision and focus on replacing state enterprise board members culminated in a public quarrel, which emanated from within your government, over a Caribbean Airlines aircraft acquisition decision.
(via UNC.)
Can we please avoid replacing boorish sets of directors with other sets equally “udecottish” in manner?
Whether the UNC won by default because the PNM vote plummeted by 102,000, or because you regained some of our trust, or a mixture of both, do not falter dear Kamla in proceeding promptly, but empathetically, with the measures needed to curb violent crime and to relieve the distress of those socio-economic groups that the Rowley-led PNM deserted.
Our future peace and stability depend on such an approach.
Photo: UNC.
Meanwhile, Pennelope “Penny” Beckles, PNM MP for Arima, was sworn in last week as leader of the Opposition. She too struck a conciliatory tone but was also immediately let down when defeated MP for San Fernando West, Faris Al Rawi, lost it outside President’s House and gave a six-month political forecast, which included “terror, torture and persecution”.
Let’s be clear that nothing will change for the better and there is no chance of peace in Trinidad and Tobago, if we do not take hatred of opponents out of our politics.
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Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
