We all know the myth of the Trojan Horse. The metaphor has been used by many to describe the COP since the party’s presence was used to dress the UNC up for the 2010 elections to make the People’s Partnership more attractive and appear as a gift to the nation. The Partnership that would save our politics.
The UNC, for all its posturing about new leadership under Kamla Persad-Bissessar, still carried strong whiffs of the stench of corruption of its last two terms in office that involved events like: Dhanraj Singh going to jail; a lost shipment of rice attributed to then CEO of NFM Vasant Bharath; ghost URP gangs under Works and Transport Minister Sadiq Baksh; PM Basdeo Panday’s London apartment and the $2m in his wife’s bank account; and, of course, the Piarco airport fiasco that saw roughly $500m disappearing in the building of an airport that allegedly cost around $1.2b to build.
The COP became the UNC’s beard. It covered up and distracted (some) from the UNC’s obvious shortcomings. It’s membership featured members who were prominent in noteworthy fields: academia, environmental activism, social activism, gender activism. The list is long, but you get the picture? On paper and at meetings, the COP looked like a party peopled with intellectually and morally sound individuals. People who were capable of distinguishing right from wrong; calling the UNC out on corruption and malfeasance, and generally providing some sort of conscience that seemed sadly lacking in our Parliament…
Read the rest of this analysis of the COP at my Squarespace blog site…
The Eternal Pantomime 