Snakes and Ladders

Paolo Kernahan

SWEAR IN a cabinet today, call an election tomorrow; a "cobo sweat" isn’t what it used to be.

Amateur political analysts online are describing this snap election as a chess move. It’s more akin to Snakes and Ladders – the final play in an elaborate, but obvious sleight of hand for the public.

The game began in earnest with the pseudo-state of emergency and Rowley’s shock announcement at the beginning of this year that he was calling time on his political career.

After that, it was all about keeping to a timetable for the always semi-retired, now fully decommissioned PM. While the move raises more questions than answers, there’s one undeniable fact – no political party confident of its record of performance and standing with the electorate would pull a stunt like this.

For those insisting the UNC was caught unawares and woefully underprepared, such opinions haven’t weighed up a crucial point. Over the past nearly ten years, the UNC has weakened, not gained strength. The opposition is more fractured than ever and never adequately weaponised the PNM’s penchant for failure and arrogance in defence of incompetence.

As feeble as the opposition might be, the incumbent still views the UNC as enough of a threat to its dominance that the country went from a refurbished cabinet to a prorogued Parliament in less than two days.

Unlike the PNM, the UNC’s inner squabbles are fodder for its political enemies; purges are public and bruising. In the house of the balisier, load-bearing stalwart Colm Imbert – and others like him – squeaked past the screening committee by the skin of his perennially-bared teeth, only to be downgraded from the lofty heights at which he served for nearly all of two consecutive terms.

Colm, by all indications, is taking that backhand slap like a champ. The embattled former finance minister was likely dispatched to public utilities – the patron saint of lost causes – to remove him as a target of criticism and platform salvos.

This is, of course, misguided. It’s not likely that the public will forget his war of attrition with Auditor General Jaiwantie Ramdass (which Imbert lost), the spectre of mislaid money and poor accountability. Then there’s the forex shortages which Imbert stridently denied until the crisis became so loud he was forced to acknowledge the problem! And these are just the lowlights.

It was also obvious that former national security minister Fitzgerald Hinds would be moved and allowed to save face in a broom closet in the office of the PM. Rowley couldn’t/wouldn’t get rid of the plainly incapable Hinds and left it for his successor to handle. The party didn’t want to tote that albatross into an election.

But why the pageantry? Why swear in placeholders only to call the election and put the country on hold? Well, it’s all about optics. A presentation of an old/new cabinet along with the anointed PM was meant to make Stuart Young look decisive, to allow him to put his stamp on his own administration.

Word from party insiders is that these Machiavellian manoeuvres are being performed from "behind the scenes" by none other than Keith Rowley who still retains his power over the PNM.

Meanwhile, Young has been flitting hither and thither scattering vapid campaign promises – "Stand by, stand by. Exciting things are going to be taking place.” This son of privilege, repackaged as a working-class heritage story, is desperately flailing about to wrest political agency from the ether.

But why didn’t Young take the time to fit into the role before rushing for a mandate? Is it that his handlers doubted his ability to command the respect of the party without a victory at the polls? Moreover, who will be leading the campaign? There have been suggestions that Rowley, who retains the post of political leader, will be doing most of the sales with Young meant to absorb political capital as if by osmosis.

Any objective, rational person can see that conditions in this country – crime, a failing economy, poor governance – aren’t improving; they’re getting worse. For all the flag-waving and wining in Woodford Square, the "party elite" know these facts to be true. Everything we’ve witnessed from January 3 – "...I will be going off to be with my family” – to today is Rowley’s endgame in play.

Remarkably, Stuart Young is being presented as an entirely new political persona with transformative ideas, even though he has been in office for almost ten straight years. Soon enough we'll know whether that sort of hard reboot works with Trini voters.