Tag Archives: Raffique Shah

Elections, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics, UNC

SS Trinidad Sinking

31 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 19, 2015

Raffique ShahAmidst the din of election campaigning—hundreds of ‘Kamla has a plan’ ads on all television stations during prime time, DJ music systems scouring the country daily, public meetings broadcast nightly on almost every radio and television station, more ads popping up every time you click on the Internet, assaults via phones and emails—I have yet to hear one frontline politician tell the people of this nation of the grim times the country faces if oil and gas prices keep tumbling, as they have done over the past two months.
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Crime in T&T, Elections, General T&T, People's Partnership, UNC

An issue more important than crime

9 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 8, 2015

Raffique ShahWE columnists are on a roll during “elections season”, but in my 34 years of writing commentaries, I have never enjoyed a long, scandalous, comical campaign as the current one.

It’s so good, or bad (depending on one’s perspective), readers have taken to telephoning or emailing me with suggestions as to what I should address.
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corruption, Court, Crime in T&T, Elections, ILP, Law

Wet brown paper could cut Jack

44 Comments

By Raffique Shah
August 02, 2015

Raffique ShahIN days of old here in Trinidad, people one or two generations ahead of mine used an adage, “when yuh crooked, wet brown paper could cut you”.

The word “crooked” in that context usually meant “a run of bad luck”, although in the instant case of Jack Warner, to whom it now applies, it could be a double-entendre. And if wet brown paper could cut you, then you were really deep in the doo-doo.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Murder

Questions over jailbreak

1 Comment

By Raffique Shah
July 25, 2015

Raffique ShahTRUST Trinidad and Tobago to make history of a most dubious nature at a time when most countries similarly endowed are forging ahead in positive ways.

Last Friday’s jailbreak, in which three high-risk prisoners escaped by shooting their way out of one of the most secure prisons in the Caribbean, was historic in the sense that it was the first of its kind in the country, and maybe even in the region.
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Elections, General T&T, Politics, Racism Watch, UNC

Please, not the Country Club

14 Comments

By Raffique Shah
July 18, 2015

Raffique ShahWHEN you don’t have a sense of history, especially your own, you can end up saying or doing the stupidest things, convinced that you are yourself making history.

Take the UNC’s choice of venue for its last Monday night meeting, the Country Club in Maraval. When I first heard the advertisement for the meeting, I thought there must have been some mistake, that maybe some upper-class support group had organised a soirée or banquet or some such social event to raise funds for the party’s campaign.
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Crime in T&T, Politics

Mismanaging the economy

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By Raffique Shah
July 05, 2015

Raffique ShahIN the pre-election polls conducted thus far, the issues that are of concern to the electorate are crime, unemployment, corruption, health care and rising prices, mostly in that order.

The state of the economy does not feature at all, although it impacts almost all these concerns.

Understandably, crime is the number one issue. Notwithstanding claims by both the Government and the police that there have been significant decreases in “serious crimes”, clearly, most people live in fear of being victims.
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Elections, General T&T, ILP, Media, UNC

It’s the economy, clowns

26 Comments

By Raffique Shah
June 27, 2015

Raffique ShahIt is quite an indictment against most if not all of the adult population of this country that focus of attention in this election campaign thus far has been on scandals aplenty that titillate our perverted taste buds.

We are riveted to Jack Warner’s nocturnal meanderings that have traversed paper trails involving large sums of money allegedly paid to his former friends in the UNC, and crept into the private lives of the Prime Minister and her friends.
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Crime in T&T, Elections, ILP, Law, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Sports, UNC, USA

Jack’s revenge

46 Comments

By Raffique Shah
June 21, 2015

Raffique ShahJack Warner is not a mad man—or delusional, as the Prime Minister euphemistically puts it.

If he was, then the PM, who chose him to act in the highest office in the land on several occasions, and assigned him to the national security portfolio three years ago, must be madder than him.

And members of Cabinet and the People’s Partnership hierarchy who clung to him as if he were a latter-day Jesus or Rama or Muhammad, are the maddest people ever to have governed a country.
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Elections, General T&T, Labour, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Racism Watch, UNC

More CEPEP, URP ‘lochos’

10 Comments

By Raffique Shah
Jun 13, 2015

Raffique ShahAs she enters uncharted territory seeking a second term in office, the Prime Minister exudes a measure of confidence that is at odds with a widely-held perception that her People’s Partnership coalition will lose the general election.

She and her ministers have made it clear that they plan to campaign on performance, which they hope will mute charges of corruption, waste and scandal that were deafening during the past five years.
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