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
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 08, 2025
Nostalgia led me to the People’s National Movement Manifesto of 1991, the year it defeated the National Alliance for Reconstruction. The PNM returned to government in 1991 but lost power to the United National Congress in 1995. A year later, the Leader of Our Grief and Sorrow challenged Patrick Manning’s leadership and lost. His rise to national prominence began at that point. The Leader will leave the political scene in a few weeks but will retain his influence on his protégé, Stuart Young.
Continue reading Intentional distraction
By Raffique Shah
January 11, 2025
It would be quite a thing if the leadership succession issue in the ruling People’s National Movement were to erupt into something akin to war, while the party has often been described as the best organised in the Caribbean.
I had planned this column before Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley announced his proposed resignation, and subsequently the naming of his successor, Energy Minister Stuart Young. That grabbed national attention and with it, controversy, before I could write. But that is politics for you—unpredictable in the most stable of times and immutable in the worst of times.
Continue reading Be thankful for Rowley
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
By Raffique Shah
December 04, 2024
I expect a bruising political year ahead of us as general election 2025 looms large. The Opposition United National Congress (UNC) has never really stopped campaigning since their loss in 2015. The margins of victory—the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM) polled in 2015 and 2020—were close enough to keep the PNM uneasy, but the UNC probably blew it by turning to the courts in constituencies where they were behind by relatively small numbers of votes, causing them to lose goodwill among the electorate.
Continue reading No need for wars
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.)
Continue reading Hubris goes before the fall
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
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 23, 2024
Two weeks ago, I responded to Nigel Seenathsingh’s letter that appeared in the Express. I wrote: “When I warned…about the dangers inherent in the Leader of Our Grief’s statements about women, I was not trying to demonise him or Stuart Young. I was only alerting my readers to be on guard about the violence against women [I emphasised women] that exists in our society and the role that language plays in this regard.”
Continue reading Language matters
By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 16, 2024
After the People’s National Movement came into power in 1956, Eric Williams took an inordinate length of time (sometimes as much as three hours) to deliver his budget speeches. He used them to reach his fellow citizens since the means of communication were not as widely available as they are today. It was also a way to expand the democratic process.
Today we live in an era of Facebook and TikTok. It is anachronistic for a minister of finance to spend five hours delivering a budget speech. It reflects an attitude of someone living in the past.
Continue reading The leader’s schizophrenic behaviour
By Raffique Shah
October 16, 2024
It is said that if you live long enough, you would have seen and heard “Everything”. I am closing in on 80 years and based on my last 30 years’ experience, I do not think I have seen close to everything. I guess the wise men who made that statement lived in the “donkey cart” era, not cars-powered-by-electricity era.
In today’s world, say over a generation (30 years), pace of change is so dizzying that one can suffer multiple medical conditions just trying to keep abreast of technology alone. If for nothing else, I’d like to be here to see the noiseless cars powered by electricity, silently whizzing up and down the highways and the byways. I want to see “Bounce mih nah!” Trinis shout at motorists whizzing past silently.
Continue reading Lead by example, PM