So rightly, Panday says that the President should be elected by the citizens and immediately citizens want to know why he didn’t make that constitutional change when he was PM? History tends to repeat itself is sometimes true.
You see, according to grapevine sources and couple dozen educated guesses, Panday also had in mind to change residence during his second term and become President while either John Humphrey or Ramesh Maharaj would step into his cinematic cowboy boots as PM.
However, and again according to the grapevine and more educated guesses, there was trouble in paradise, for while Oma Panday saw herself as our local Jacqueline Kennedy at President House, she adamantly rejected the idea of the illustrious Lynette Maharaj being the Lady who held court at the PM’s residence. The petticoat war eventually saw to Panday’s second term becoming a truncated one with his presidential dream becoming a nightmare.
While Panday made the terminal mistake of threatening to leave no one unscathed who exposed his Ministers and scathingly attacked a journalist for being “insulting” to a simple question, he nonetheless had many iconic pluses in his armory to fit and embellish the office of President, but what are Rowley’s credentials for that position? Ask Zelensky, the visiting Ukrainian President to meet him on the pavement to thrash out their differences and Zelensky gives him a good martial arts trashing on why one must be careful of what one asks for and beat his rass to a pulp?
If the PNM wanted the status quo remain fixed because it suited them just fine, why didn’t both Panday and Kamla change things when it was their golden opportunity to do so?
Robinson gave Panday his two seats to make him PM why in the spirit of the quid pro quo nicety (you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours) Panday didn’t give Robinson Tobago which he wanted and which would have defanged the PNM for all times. And Kamla who didn’t learn that Tobago was a vote bank for the PNM went on to spend and boast about the excessive money she spent there when she too, should have seen Tobago as unnecessary baggage to be jettisoned and today Tobagonian Rowley would not have been our problem.
So many constitutional changes might have been made to enhance life in this little paradise, but this is what happens with OJTs, they just continue the status quo making no changes, offering no suggestions to that effect. The idea of having referenda for matters of national importance should have been one of those changes made so for the property tax and this presidential issue, it should have been an automatic citizen’s right to vote on it. As it is, ours is technically a dictatorship.
L. Siddhartha Orie