We need joy, not wicked stepmom

THE EDITOR: Anyone looking at the US news would have noticed the radical mood shift in that country over the last few weeks. From doom and gloom, the Democratic Party's campaign for the election in November has become joyful and optimistic.

The reason for the change is Kamala Harris, who replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic candidate to face Donald Trump. With this one move, where an ageing, declining candidate gave way to a younger, accomplished one, the politics of the world have changed. (It echoes in Gaza, Taiwan and Ukraine.)

And our large neighbour is temporarily transformed. The lesson for us here is that optimism is infectious, transformative and necessary, and we have not seen it in some time. But we in TT know the phenomenon.

We first saw it in 1986 with the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR). After 30 years of the PNM the economy had crashed, crime was the worst it had ever been, and citizens were mailing their house keys to the banks and “bussing it,” in the argot of the time. The country was traumatised. The NAR’s slogan was “One Love” and the country grabbed it; rallies were filled with jubilation and hope, and the NAR’s victory and its subsequent collapse are now history.

Another such moment was in 2010. The PNM had been in power since 2001. The murder rate had topped 500. The economy was floundering despite the billions that had passed through in the previous decade. The election of 2007 had gone awry when the UNC ejected its leader, Winston Dookeran, at the behest of Basdeo Panday.

Dookeran then formed the Congress of the People, the CoP, which won 22 per cent of the vote, but no seat, and put the PNM back in power. In the aftermath, it became clear that Panday had become our Joe Biden at that point in time: he could not win an election and was standing in the way of progress.

An election was two years off, but then prime minister Patrick Manning, reeling under accusations of corruption, inexplicably called a snap election in 2010. The UNC membership elected Kamla Persad-Bissessar its political leader, and everything changed. She headed the People's Partnership, and the country was immediately transformed. The PP rallies resembled the NAR’s, brimming optimism and joy.

The result was a massive victory for the coalition. Unfortunately, what came after also followed the NAR pattern – a break-up, and a defeat in 2015, which allowed the PNM back in.

Nine years later, it's déjà vu, almost. The country, beleaguered by crime that more closely resembles domestic terrorism, and economic hardship, is again on its knees. But there's one difference. As the PNM wallows in unchecked incompetence, Persad-Bissessar, whose multiple election losses and failures as a leader are painfully evident, refuses to give way.

So as of now we are in the exact position the US was in a few weeks ago: PNM victory seems inevitable in 2025. And, as in the US, the fate of the entire country rests in one individual’s hands: Persad-Bissessar's, who has repeatedly said she has no intention of resigning, despite the certain 2025 loss.

And just as Trump warped the US Supreme Court and several state legislatures to grease his re-election, Persad-Bissessar has done the same to the UNC. Despite donors and allies showing her the inevitable, and the horrific consequences of her not moving, Persad-Bissessar refuses to move, enabled by non-functioning party institutions, a few sycophants who buzz around her.

Kamala Harris has become christened in US pop culture as the “cool auntie” everyone loves. Persad-Bissessar is fond of referring to herself in maternal terms, but she is behaving more like a wicked stepmother now. She is doing the opposite of what Harris is doing: stifling, paralysing and robbing the population of optimism and possibility it desperately needs. As the changed seating arrangements in Parliament show, her pettiness knows no bounds.

The question is: how many people who are in a position to eject her are going to act? How many will do nothing as one person keeps us in terror and pain for another five years? I, and others, have tried and tried, and it is up to those who can to retire Persad-Bissessar, and release the joy we so desperately need. Otherwise, the next five years will make the last five seem like a holiday.

This letter was authored immediately following the US presidential debate between Trump and Harris. This is not an instance of speaking my mind; rather, it is about speaking the truth.

DINESH RAMBALLY

MP, Chaguanas West