THE ground-breaking ruling by Chief Magistrate McNicolls, sentencing the Chairman of the United National Congress (UNC) Basdeo Panday to two years imprisonment with hard labour, quavered the foundation of the House of the Rising Sun.

It’s no secret that the party is enduring a staid transition period, as they are now recovering from a grab for power by certain elements of the now-defunct National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR).

However, with the sagacity of Jack Warner and born-again Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, they were able to stave-off a challenge to usurp the party by the powerless Political Leader Winston Dookeran and his sycophants.

The customary aloofness of the St. Augustine Member of Parliament (encircled by a handful of extremists who were very vocal in objecting to his exclusion from speaking on the podium in the UNC headquarters) was discernibly traumatised.

According to the grapevine, NAR opportunists in the UNC anticipated that the judgement would have been adverse and gauged that it was, unquestionably, the idyllic occasion to implement their agenda.

To make matters more disconcerting, the breakneck pronouncement by the President to relieve the Bas of his responsibility as Opposition Leader was retort with prompt reaction from the UNC rankers to recant or disperse any consideration by their political leader to vie for the vacancy.

Jack Warner denoted in his address to party loyalists that the imprisoned UNC Chairman didn’t want any fair-weather friend, as the ace to hang Dookeran’s jack.

This statement prevented Dookeran from addressing the gathering of the faithful at the party headquarters.

His media advisor, the infuriated Nirad Tewarie, was unable to control his emotions, as the outburst illustrated signs of desperation and defeat.

My speculation is that the NAR faction has been “busted” and they will not be able to go forward with their schema, to conveniently ride the backs of the rank and file to instigate their vindictiveness on unsuspecting UNC activists and party supporters.

The semantic noise by Gerald Yetming, Mervyn Assam, Roy Augustus, Robin Montano and the other peeved supporters of Dookeran’s old guards cannot be translated to mass support, much less votes.

Now that Tewarie’s behaviour has debarred him from being an effective spokesman in the NAR camp, we are witnessing the re-emergence of Roy Augustus, as spokesman, chief cook and political advisor.

The words emanating from Roy’s arrogance are aimed at hurling flame to the fire, as if he has been reprimanded and discharged for pushing a “dotish” head as Basdeo was sentenced to prison.

In the fullness of time, Roy and his comrades would understand that basket does not hold political water and his absurdity spouted on CNC 3 and the Trinidad Express tantamount to zero.

In truth and in fact, the NAR headhunters are conscious that the political spectrum can only accommodate two parties and since the opportunist cannot infiltrate the strong Afro-based PNM, they took kindness for weakness and attempted to play smart with foolishness by using Dookeran as a front man to permeate the UNC.

For a certainty, fools venture where wise men fear to tread and Dookeran knows this better than his advisors, as he has already felt the wrath of the grassroots when he contested Hulssie Bhaggan in Chaguanas in 1991 General Elections.

Dookeran received a severe thrashing. He paid the ultimate political penalty for failing to obey the command of his tribal chief, the Bas.

Therefore, he has to evaluate what has changed in the political equation to revalidate his survival, aspiration and ambition without the blessings of the rank and file of the party.

If his ego were driven by the opinion polls, the little idiotic boys masquerading as his political strategists, the few petit bourgeois opportunists and political grass-hoppers then, undoubtedly, he would achieve the accolade as the supreme glutton for political punishment.

Whereas, certain fraudsters in the UNC persevere to fan the flame of discord, the PNM gang is not leaving any stones unturned, “to come again”, to plunder the treasury and oppress the masses.

If you have doubts about their devious strategies, ask the homosexual judge who was caught in an uncompromising position, if it was not a lawyer who is a heavyweight in the PNM that confronted him with the three photos.

The embarrassed judge was so petrified that he took an instant trip to a nearby resort to regain his manhood, to deal with his family and his peers in the judiciary.

Remember he had already fabricated some lying excuses by informing his family that he was kidnapped and beaten by bandits, only when TnT Mirror “buss” the mark, his wife confronted him with the facts which augmented the mayhem in his matrimonial home.

Chief Justice Sat Sharma should demand his resignation and reprimand the other judges and magistrates who are lesbians and homosexuals.

It is public knowledge that the judiciary is infected with vices and the Chief Justice must act swiftly to restore confidence in the judiciary. Eventually, the justice system would be compromised, as politicians and influential people would exploit the weakness of the officials as bargaining chips to pervert the course of justice.

In a previous discourse, I have specified the importance of judges and magistrates declaring their sexual preferences, so as to avoid the inherent biasness that is part of the liberal fraternity or the new-age mankind.

However, the influence of the politicians on the judiciary has serious implications on the democracy which would eventually result in manipulation of political opponents; either refusal of bail or stiff jail sentence.

The leader of the Jamaat al Muslimeen, Yasin Abu Bakr is a classical case of a political conspiracy and a reflection of the dark side of the demagogy that masquerades as democracy.

Ask the old Bas; he might be able to shed some light on this issue and the importance of uniting to ward off an impending dictatorship by the PNM.

Therefore, the time has come for the leaders of the UNC to terminate the haemorrhaging by getting rid of the dissidents, so that the party rebuilding process could commence with immediate effect.

Procrastination is a theft of time and while they blunder, the PNM is exploiting the opportunity to inflict punishment on the masses.

The resignation of Basdeo Panday as Chairman of the party must be complemented with a purging of the UNC and a serious effort to quell the puppet show, which is now branded by the rank and file as a failed effort of a grab for power by the NAR hypocrites.

If Dookeran is suffering from illusions of grandeur, the poor turnout last week Saturday by his extremists was certainly a rude awakening or a reality check as to why he has to eat humble pie and abandon his agenda.

Every time I listen to the political leader of the UNC, he reminds me of my church days when the pastor demanded that the congregation bow their heads and close their eyes to pray and he utilised the unguarded moment to plunder the tithes and offerings.

For Dookeran’s clamour of a new politics has proven to be a misdemeanour, mere words; after almost two years, he has not demonstrated in theory nor in practice, what is the nature of the concept being propagated.

The ill-advised political leader relegating himself to the back-bench of Parliament is just an example of the triviality the population is not prepared to tolerate in these troubled times.