By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 22, 2025
Hear the urine drip
From an immense bladder…
Hear words stripped of their soul
Hanging like bats from caves of rotten teeth.
—LeRoy Clarke, Douens
Continue reading Stuart’s abracadabra moment
Category Archives: PNM
PNM leaps ahead
By Raffique Shah
March 22, 2025
When the history of politics in Trinidad and Tobago is written, those who are shaping our future and those who are making our history will be alarmed at how easily an epoch was erased, how a new era almost slid past the hands of historians, with hardly a note written about it. Not even the men and women who were reshaping our history were aware of this momentous change, focused as they were on winning an election.
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A new-faced PNM?
By Raffique Shah
March 15, 2025
I imagine by the time readers get through today’s column, the People’s National Movement (PNM) will have completed its processes and revealed its full slate of candidates minus Dr Keith Rowley, who, as far as I can translate what is happening, will not be prime minister but will remain political leader of the party.
Yeah, I know: I’ve just burdened you with a long-winded sentence; bear in mind that the narrative reflects what is actually happening on the ground. So, if people are confused by what is happening, hopefully they will not be confused by my writing.
Continue reading A new-faced PNM?
PNM’s obtuse rationalisations
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 08, 2025
Blissfully, the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow will soon relieve us of our miseries. Unfortunately, he leaves his clones behind who know not what they say or do. Chief among them are Faris Al-Rawi, a former attorney general, and Stuart Young, our first unelected prime minister.
Al-Rawi complimented the Leader recently for “his policy initiatives and actions, which he said were critical in stabilising the oil and gas sector in Trinidad and Tobago. He also complimented Young for his measured approach to the imminent change in leadership”. (Express, February 27.) I am not sure what that last sentence means.
Continue reading PNM’s obtuse rationalisations
Absolute foolishness
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2025
“Absolute foolishness.” Those were the words the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow used when he described “the heavy foreign exchange spending on Carnival costumes…He insists that costumes are not investments” (Guardian, February 26). Such statements are “absolute nonsense” and “absolute foolishness” combined in one.
Continue reading Absolute foolishness
UNC’s victory: the necessary antidote to PNM’s revival
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 25, 2025
A United National Congress victory in the forthcoming election is the necessary antidote to heal the fissures that have erupted in the PNM’s political structure. Only a UNC victory can counteract the fiendish act of PNM’s hierarchy of selling the party to the highest financial bidders. This will necessitate that PNM takes a more careful look at itself, especially in the absence of the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow.
Continue reading UNC’s victory: the necessary antidote to PNM’s revival
PNM sells out to the rich
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
January 18, 2025
The People’s National Movement came into being against the backdrop of the representatives of black and brown people who met in Bandung, Indonesia, to oppose colonialism. In 1955, 29 countries representing 1.5 billion people (or 54% of the world’s population) demanded a greater share of the world’s financial resources.
Continue reading PNM sells out to the rich
Vote out the PNM
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 28, 2024
Three recent events cemented in my mind that the poor and the not-so-poor will suffer much more over the next five years than they do today if the present Government is not changed.
The PNM must move aside to allow us to inhale a new breath of freedom, experience greater competence in running the country’s affairs, and to assure us that we can expect a more normal life in the future.
Continue reading Vote out the PNM
Hubris goes before the fall
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 12, 2024
It was November 2016; the PNM had just won an election, and it was riding high. At a conference hosted by the Government and the International Monetary Fund, Finance Minister Colm Imbert explained why he had raised the price of fuel. He boasted: “I increased the price of fuel by 15% and then realised that was not enough. I came back again in April and raised it by another 15% and I came back again just a few weeks ago and raised it by another 15%. They haven’t rioted yet.” (Loop News, November 9, 2016.)
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The ultimate barbarian
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 05, 2024
It may seem an exaggeration, but the Leader of Our Grief is the most obnoxious leader we have had in our 62 years of independent rule. He has revealed himself as an unsophisticated bully who is unaware of his social and political responsibilities to the nation.
His latest display of incivility was wrapped up in a perfumed package of royal pomp and circumstance. He boasted that after having had dinner with King Charles III, Mia Mottley of Barbados, King Mswati of Eswatini, and President Irfaan Ali of Guyana he discovered that the UNC and its leaders had criticised the person he had selected to turn our economy around. He called his critics “the most destructive, unpatriotic louts among us”.
Continue reading The ultimate barbarian