ON HOLD!!!

A number of my friends and followers have been asking why I haven't written anything in this blog for the last month or so. The answer is simply because I regard everything that has happened recently as really worth nothing and, quite frankly, beneath the value of commentary. For example, Ms. Nalini Dial's rant on Facebook about the terrible murder of the daughter of Ms. Marlene Coudray was crass, low and absolutely contemptible and certainly not worth the amount of publicity that it was given.

In another vein, the resignation of Mr. David Abdullah and the withdrawal of his "Party" the MSJ from the Government received a heck of a lot of publicity but really and truly in terms of the overall effect on the politics of this country amount to less than "diddley-squat". I had put the word "Party" in inverted comma's in the last sentence when I referred to the MSJ because the truth is that as of today (and yesterday and probably tomorrow) the MSJ couldn't make its deposit in any constituency in good old T&T. The "Party" is a one dimensional collection of labour leaders who "get high on their own supply" and have am inflated sense of their own self importance. They have absolutely no solutions for the better governance of this country save and except that in their view workers are not given their fair share of the national pie or cake. The time to pay attention to the pronouncements of the MSJ (or indeed any political party worthy of the name) is when it can command the support of a reasonable section of the electorate. Until then .... well, the least said is probably the better.

Frankly, what I have been waiting for (like the rest of the country) is the impending Cabinet reshuffle which is due out now, maybe even today. And, like most persons the office that I shall be looking at the most is that of the Ministry of Finance. For make no mistake, this impending reshuffle can make or break Mrs. Persad-Bissessar's government. Although she has three years left, the truth is that after next year people's attitudes will begin to harden, and even if, say, by year five, things start to turn around, history has shown that the electorate will punish the government by voting them out. And the only way to turn things around is to improve the economy or at least make people believe and accept that what is being done is the best that can be done in all of the circumstances ... a task that the inarticulate Winston Dookeran has patently failed to do. Look, Mr. Dookeran may have been a very good Finance Minister and he may have done the best that he could in all of teh circumstances. I personally, don't think so, but there are a lot of people who disagree with me on this. But this is not my point here. My point is that he has failed to convince the country that what is being done is the absolute best that could possibly be done in all of the circumstances. Even those who disagree with me on his actual performance agree with me on this. And the art of politics is being able to persuade people to follow you on a particular matter (or matters).

So we will all find out fairly soon what the Prime Minister has in her mind and what she is going to do. It is clear that whatever her faults, the Prime Minister does understand the value of timing. The fact that she has had us all on hold for all this time shows at the very least that the lady has political courage and understands the game of political brinkmanship better than most.