Mouth open, story jump out

THE EDITOR: With the UNC’s internal election being held on Sunday, the public mudslinging between political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and challenger Vasant Bharath has clearly been ramped up, with the usual pumping out of political rhetoric to the distortion of the real issues. But I suppose that’s to be expected as our politicians simply sell what their voters buy – bacchanal.

Of course, you don’t have to be a political scientist to appreciate that Bharath’s chances of wresting the leadership mantle from Persad-Bissessar is akin to a snowball’s chance in hell. Don’t get me wrong, by my estimate he has certainly shown himself to be the better statesman and perhaps may even be a better leader, but by all accounts he is still unlikely to win.

In fact Bharath himself seems to have conceded this point as only this week he protested the composition of the party’s elections committee, contending that the odds were being stacked against him.

One can only suggest that his continued participation in what he willingly admits is a rigged and corrupted process may be for the histrionics of it all, or perchance in staunch principled defiance. Whatever the case, the result is likely to remain unchanged – defeat.

I suppose it’s why Persad-Bissessar’s recent attack on his team’s ethnic diversity – or the lack thereof – caught me by surprise, as it appeared to be her kicking a wounded dog while it’s already down.

I mean, with all the key party officials on her side, she clearly already has victory in hand, with Sunday’s membership vote expected to be nothing more than a rubber stamping to make it official. So why not be magnanimous in victory? Why pelt stones when living in a bigger glass house?

Surely, the irony of her statement couldn’t be lost on her, as the ethnic diversity of her handpicked parliamentary team (being the more important one) isn’t reflective of the population. Obviously, Persad-Bissessar hasn’t learned the lessons of the last general election as she appears to continue down the same repugnant track of innuendos and dog whistling at the risk of our racial solidarity.

What’s even more disquieting is that her insinuation that Bharath’s team needed more people who look like Jearlean John, Sean Sobers and Clifton De Coteau (Afro-Trinidadians), while clearly intended to disparage him may have unwittingly revealed a subconscious (or conscious?) bias – simply choosing such people to represent the party as mere “token Afro-Trinis” or window dressing designed to win votes. As they say in local parlance, “mouth open, story jump out.”

A PHILLIP

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