OF all the terrible tragedies to befall us leading up to and since May 24, 2010, none of them has been as painful to bear as the dashed hopes of deliverance invested in those who held themselves up as agents of change.
Remarkably the top contenders span the race, religion and partisan divide and provide a mirror from which a glimpse of our future can be grasped. This is a story of three almost great men who dared to stand before destiny and challenge it with promises of a better day under their watch if given the opportunity to serve. All three actively auditioned for the role of leader, and made promises at every step that not one of them has lived up to. This is not meant to disrespect but in some cases it was unavoidable and for that alone I apologise.
Leading us off is Winston Dookeran, who was supposed to be the ‘anti’ Basdeo Panday. In place of his (Panday’s) infamous politics having a morality of its own, Winston promised integrity and morality in public affairs. What he delivered, though, is a government to which morality seems a hindrance and integrity a fetter. Playing the part of the embattled leader to the very end, his much-touted economic acumen failed to deliver anything new to the people, causing many to wonder what all the fuss was about. As a direct consequence of his weak negotiating skills and weaker leadership style, Winston entered into an agreement that silenced his aspirations even as it gave him access to a power he seemed not to know how to use. Not one item on the COP’s agenda has made it to the national agenda, and Winston, challenged and broken within his own party, was unceremoniously cast aside and left to tinker away in the end.
Stephen Cadiz wanted to prove that he was no mere employer but a friend to the working man, so in response to the tragic murder of his employee/friend Keith Noel, Stephen created the Keith Noel 136 Committee to bring real pressure to bear on the State and the then PNM government for failing to protect the people from the criminal element and curb violent crime. Taking his show on the road and enlisting family and friends, Stephen brought a petition and a death march complete with coffins to make his point, and make it he did. His campaign highlighted deficiencies and offered suggestions; where there was an absence of purpose he had plans that, if given the opportunity, would bring real change in the way the nation did business where the enforcement of law was concerned. One would have expected to hear that Mr. Cadiz had graciously turned the Prime Minister’s offer of a Ministry down as it contradicted the purpose of his being in Government in the first place, but alas, instead of pursuing the issue now from on the inside, Stephen seems to have lost his way, leaving Keith Noel’s rotting corpse, having long served its purpose, to decay in peace.
Of the three in this piece none auditioned harder for the role of leader than Dr. Keith Rowley. Embracing the title of ‘the Rottweiler’, placed on him in mockery, Keith turned his ferocious fangs on his leader, Patrick Manning, on two now famous occasions and positioned himself as leader in waiting. No one could be excused for being excited at the prospect of this new dawning of the Age of Aquarius, and if there were members to blame for the PNM’s misfortunes, we settled in for the show because there was going to be hell to pay now that the Rott was in charge. Proving to be the greatest disappointment of all, Dr. Rowley is now referred to in such unloving terms as ‘dud’ and ‘misfire,’ and where the hope of a party and a nation once stood (and to belabour the metaphor), now stands a noisy mongrel barking at everything that walks past his gate. Dr. Rowley has brought nothing new to the party and has instead, by his failure to deliver as promised, opened the door for the return of his former leader, much to the consternation and frustration of all who worked tirelessly and patriotically to fire him.
There are no others in whom we had such high expectations for change in the recent past as these three, and it is instructive the differences in background and roads travelled that led them to this same place, the ash heap of our politics. History will not be kind to the memory of those who use the people’s misfortunes to further their own agendas, and Winston Dookeran, Stephen Cadiz and Keith Rowley will have as their legacies ‘Here are men on whom destiny was wasted and to whom the call to lead went unanswered.’
Phillip Edward Alexander
