Some words of Advice. . .

From Mr Rowley to Mr Warner from Hollywood.

BWTMC!?

Yeah. I'm seeing it too. Is that a bottle of WHISKEY in that youth's hand?? But What The Mudder ¢ü~†?! THIS is the youth that is going to take the country forward? THIS is the people that will be voting in on Monday and beyond?

The PNM has a lot to answer for. This picture is the straw, forget the Guanapo church! Forget the alphabet soups of UDECOTT, THIS image alone will destroy the PNM.

But there are other WTMC's to come. I will list them out:

Colm Imbert, otherwise known as Tattoo and the Court Jester is trying to use his Napoleon complex to remove an electronic billboard in Maraval. WTMC Colm, you can't lift that by yourself! You too small! Call the police they will move it for you, because like the Ariapita Incident, you can make the Police do ANYTHING but catch the criminals in your constituency.

I mean WTMC!? They carjack Kamla's car, that was bad enough, but they going and BURN down this poor guy's house?! WTMC I seeing in this country?! We REALLY are getting bad. Its time people to fight and fight hard. Get out there and get the people who are undecided to vote!

BUT WTMC is this!? Sylwyn Ryan stop being a PNM stooge and is saying the Coalition is the ONLY answer!? This is unheard of! Patrick not going anywhere but Jail at this point. . . we going to have a by election in San Fernando East even if the PNM wins, because if Kamla and Co don't get him, the Rowley Faction will! He will meet hard concrete when they throw that Captain off the ship when it dock (if it ever does!)

Its the silly season! And its not silly anymore. Its downright scary!

On Loose Cannons and Sinking Ships

I'm late to press with my week in review. I apologise, I have no excuse. When one is thinking he forgets all time. I am actually writing a piece on fear, but I'm afraid its not finished yet.

So lets hear it for Mr (Former) Justice Volney, who, in my humble estimation, has torpedoed the UNC's chances of winning St Joseph and MAYBE even a few of the Coalition's marginals. Why would I say such a thing? Because Mr Volney is a loose cannon. In my estimation the campaign on the UNC side was going along quite well until Mr Volney took the stage in St Joseph. Holding up snakes and ignoring pleas to answer the "Brad Boyce question" he was presented with a small and masterfully executed protest.

Before I go on, let me give you a history of "protest." Before Gandhi protests were largely an unheard of thing, put down violently by the powers that be. Put up a resistance and you were destroyed. No more union, no more protest, the status quo was maintained. Gandhi achieved something no one could dream of though ONE thing and ONE thing only: The media. Here was this man, not even a "black man" a "Coolie" who got people to follow him in droves doing non-violent protest that moved an entire empire, through the eyes of newspapers and radio. The advent of the newsreel also helped highlight the plight of the Indians. This is the beginning of PR and nothing could stop it.

Back to the Volney protest. The T&T Media has lapped it up, opening up a wound that has remained festering for years. Why did Volney exonerate Brad Boyce? Well it wasn't because he was white, as the "other side" would have you believe. Its simply the fact that the state, as usual, screwed up the evidence. People fail to remember that in a court of law, evidence is the key, refuting of evidence is the defenses job, by bringing new evidence to prove their case. In this case the evidence was in the favour of the Boyce's How is that possible? He who has more money has more justice, this has been the way of the world since time immemorial. Its called having power. But I digress.

Volney had every right to ignore the protesters "I will answer that question soon enough." But the damage was done, the silent protest managed to torpedo Mr Volney's campaign as successfully as a German WWII Submarine in the Atlantic. Professionally printed placards, white T-shirts (to look like COP coalition members) and a SMALL group made up of the victim's family, small enough to be seen but not enough to be a threat.

Masterful.

So Mr Volney responded later by stating his involvement in the case (as outlined above) No matter that the Privvy council tapped him on the head and told him he was damn wrong, but the result is as it is, Brad Boyce has been free since 1998 and Johnson is worm food. Then Mr Volney scuttled his own boat. He RETRACTED his statement and apologised. . . This is NOT going down well with the voters in St Joseph. In my table I have put that constituency in "orange" to say it could swing either way. Now its back in PNM country because the COP voters who all of this depends on have stated that they are staying away from the polls and Swartsingh had to do NOTHING but print placards and provide white t-shirts.

Masterful.

Kamla has only herself to blame. This was faux pas number one. The second? A double edged sword that is Robinson. Once reviled by the UNC as the architect of their demise and hard core UNC supporters were caught off guard with Mrs Bissessar's cosying up to the "betrayer." But it was masterful. The whole of Tobago loves the ANR. HE is TOBAGO, his endorsement of Kamla and the Coalition has pulled a lot of the Tobago voters into the limelight. I haven't thought of Tobago yet. I consider that PNM safe seats. But if Ashworth plays his cards right (and he is by not actually running, since that leaves him freedom to float amongst the voters of both T&T and Tobago) he can win not just Tobago West BUT Tobago East (east is the hardest constituency to win and West has always been ANR's seat.) Tobago is now back on the radar as "Marginals" in my estimation. Meanwhile the UNC hardcore are wondering if this is a sign that Kamla has begun the "betraying" that Panday had predicted on the Internal Elections campaign. . .

Then there is Rowley.

Rowley's speech on Thursday night will go down in history. In one simple shot, Rowley has silenced Manning and co. The secret weapon has been let loose on the campaign, but like Volney, he's a loose cannon. Let's look at Rowley's famous "Don't throw the Captain Overboard" speech. In it he makes no mention of the infamous "10 times worse than Piarco" statement on UDECOTT, but what he DOES do is make it clear that when he wins his seat he will be going after Manning and co. Even though he failed to critcise his leader in words, he did it in actions. The splinter group of Hines and Annisette-George speak volumes. This is the PNM infighting drawn to the front without saying a word. This is a quasi-launch of a PNM internal campaign, no mistake about it, after the PNM wins the election, Rowley hopes, he can then move to step two, he will fight to remove Manning and install himself as the next Political Leader of the PNM thereby making himself Prime Minster in a NEW PNM lead government. This is all entirely possible and will all be done PNM style, quiet and in the background. You probably won't even realise it has happened until it does. Stay tuned.

So where are we with the seats. I have already sounded off on St Joseph, but what happens in one seat affects all. The UNC needs to do damage control on Volney and so far nothing has been done. Meanwhile the PNM safe seats remain safe and the UNC safe seats remain safe. Meanwhile the opposition supporters are running around saying all kinds of things, but what is clear is that as of this post, NO manifesto has been forthcoming by ANY party and no solid plans from the Coalition has been put forth. The PNM is still one upping the opposition with plans (mind you the Vision 20/20 plans are almost 10 years old and 90% of the things outlined in such plans have not even seen beyond the theory stage. Don't believe me? Read it yourself.)

You know in the end I really do think it will definitely come down to Tobago!

But the campaign grinds on and there may be more surprises in store.

Wither Rowley

Everyone asking "Wither Dookeran?" and "Wither Panday" etc etc. But what I would like to know is:

Where is Mr Rowley?


He's been noticeably absent from the platform thus far. Hes been nominated and he's going up, but not a peep on the ground in Diego Martin about Mr Rowley. Now I'll be honest here, if Rowley weren't PNM I'd vote for him! (Sounds bad doesn't it?) But hear me out, hear the thoughts: Rowley is a well spoken, up in your face, no nonsense individual, who is tough and though always looking vex, we've seen times when he has laughed and looked less like the nickname they give him. In fact SOME people claim to be friends with him on Facebook, and he doesn't seem to have a separate person dong his posting, because he has been known to come on at odd hours and post infrequent personal things. This kinda shows that maybe Mr Rowley really does think the people are important. But from what I've heard on the ground in his constituency is that if a war were to break out tomorrow you'd want him covering you as you storm the pill boxes! (Go look it up, its a World War two thing (showing my age maybe??))

So Wither Rowley? Not at all. Maybe he's the secret weapon, maybe Patos waiting till things start looking REALLY desperate (they anymore desperate than they are now? I see they rescinded the deportation order on the UNC advisor) he'll unleash the "Rottweiler" (I think that's unfair to call the man that, so from now on I'll call him Rowlie. :) Remember what I said. . . Rowley is the ace in the hole. Will he "hang Jack?" we have to wait and see . . .

And now for a little election interlude:


(oh he's gone btw. . . more thoughts to come)

THIS. IS. ELECTIONS!

So we have a date. The country took a breath and everyone started running around like headless chickens trying to get registered, and checking lists and so on. DeepThought has been telling you about voting for the last few weeks and should you want to read it you can read about "Why you should Vote," "Why the Numbers Tell you to vote," and "How to get registered." As of today, the EBC is in full registration mode only 5 more days to get on that golden list. So before I start thinking about the events of the last week I just want to say a few key things.

1. That I will try to update this page everyday with thoughts, it will be difficult as the shits going to be flying fast and furious for the next 40 days.
2. I am hoping to start posting the lists of candidates hopefully by the end of next week, as the PNM has already nearly finished it nominations, I'm just waiting on UNCOP/TOP to solidify their agreement and get the candidates out the door.
3. I will try to concentrate on the marginals and see what the feeling is on the ground.
4. No I won't tell you what constituency I am in, DeepThought has to have his own privacy!
5. and No. DeepThought will NOT tell you what he's going to do in the voting booth, BUT I think you already know!

So onto this week in review. Well we'll start with Friday. May 24th is the day of election. No fanfare, no trumpeting from the pulpit by the PM Pastor, he simply called up his partner Max and after all the bullshit talk about free tickets to this fete and who was at the other fete, he conversationally said "May 24th breds" and the notaries rushed to the one fax machine in the new PM's office, and started faxing to everyone. I wouldn't be surprised which radio station got it first, that would be Citadel Radio, run by our very own PNM-ite Louis LeeSing. Good for him, he got a sccop. So now the opposition has a chance to do what they couldn't do in 2007.

Meanwhile the PM continued his screening and Wednesday and Thursday were not free from Bobol. In fact Monday and Tuesday had even MORE bobol. The bobol for the PNM started on the weekend when Penelope Beckles was asked to take a "diplomatic posting" and car named Laurel, oooppss I meant a GIRL (for she is a VERY young girl) CALLED Laurel Lezema-Leesing (see a connection?) was put in Penelope's place. The Arima PNM-ites placarded late into the night shouting "No Penelope, NO VOTE!" Hmmm sounds familiar doesn't it? (excuse the language, I couldn't find the newspaper article) So the PNM-ites love to do the same things over and over. They placarded for Ken but the voted in that idiot Amery Brown, when they "claimed" they would vote for the COP. Hmmm What were the final results in that constiuency I wonder. Here check it yourself Amery Brown 9,301 votes. Not bad for the people who said they'd vote COP. (BTW the Vasant Barath people on the UNC side were saying the same thing. . . Trini's so predictable!)

So that leads us to the biggest bobol yet. Mr Keith "Rotweiler" Rowley. His seat is the ONLY seat I will consider a safe right now. The PNM knows it. The PM, KNOWS that he cannot lose Rowley this time around. See how politics makes strange bedfellows? Keith's nomination was secured and his crowd was just as big as Penelope. So how is this going to work? How is Keith going to go on a platform and extoll the virtues of his party, prepare speeches on PNM policy that has been proven bad for the country AND push the election of his Political Leader back in as PM. My thoughts are that Rowley can say ANYTHING at this point, even say vote for the COP, they can't stop him. So we'll just have to see what tricks he's going to turn on the hustings. We'll have to watch Mr Rowley over the next 40 days.

Now onto the Opposition. They've had the headlines for most of the week. Accommodation this and meeting that and "72 hour deadline" this. In the end what seems to have occurred is that Jack Warner has laid down the law. "Look we have 15 safe seats, you can give us MAYBE 4 more. You have nothing to bargain with. BUT we don't want you running off to your supporters and turning them away OR splitting the vote again. So here wha Dooks, you can run in St Augustine if you want, and other than San Juan/Barataria and our 15 seats and Tobago, you run anywhere you like." That leaves Tunapuna and the rest of the marginals for the COP to fight. Is this a good strategy? I will reserve comment on this until the analysts have sounded off some more as the election starts to get into full swing.

What I do know is that in certain PNM held seats if the voter turn out increases and enough people vote against the PNM, we could have a repeat of 1986. But we shall have to wait and see.

Kamla's speech on Friday night waffled some more and kept imploring people to vote out the PNM, but with no clear idea WHAT they plan to do when in Government, its seems that the only person to save Kamla and the UNC from itself is the logistics and policy making of the COP and THEIR track record hasn't been good at that either. How do you provide an alternative to something so solid as "Vision 2020?" while the "back to Basics" idea sounds nice, it DOES sound like a lot of hard work, and let's face it, Trini's lazy, they would rather someone TELL them that by 2020 they will be developed than someone tell them "You have to WORK to get 2020 status." So we shall see.

I am still formulating my last part to my "Manifesto for We." post on "culture" Stay tuned for that.

CNC3's Report on Rowley's Speech in Parliament

This is the speeech that started the PNM's fall. Rowely's stance AGAINST the PM. I put this here so you know what were fighting about.