Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory...

This weekend at least one of the daily newspapers quoted a political poll without publishing the actual poll, and while all of us were caught up reacting to the poll, it is only when someone asked me to send them a copy of the poll did I realize that I had not yet seen the actual poll. Worse, every single person that I contacted on the poll who themselves had weighed in publicly on the issue had to admit that they too had not yet seen the poll, begging the question as to if there ever was a poll in the first place.

Putting that aside, it appears as if the poll was commissioned to accomplish one thing and one thing only, to scare the Congress of the People into submission. Because based on the information in the as of yet not published poll which, for some strange and unknown reason only seem to have polled two constituencies as if that was all that was required to make the point, the poll that was never a poll left many unasked questions in its wake, and I thought I would like to request of the good people of NACTA  that if they ever do bother to actually conduct a poll, to ask other more substantial questions, especially where the COP is concerned.

But why say that it appeared to be purposed only to silence the COP? In courtrooms worldwide judges are mindful to guide lawyers as to the way they ask questions so as to protect the person being questioned from being trapped by little or no choice. The classic question posed as “Have you stopped beating your wife” presupposes you to be a wife beater, because in an environment where you are only allowed to answer yes or no, a 'yes' answer assumes that you used to beat her, and a 'no' answer means that you still do. See the quandary? To presuppose a desired outcome through the couching of the question tells the listener exactly what they want to hear, but we all know in reality nothing is limited to only two choices. Even experienced police officers tell that when dealing with disputes between persons that there are always three sides to every story; your side, my side, and the truth.

Basing questions on the viability of the Congress of the People as a political party as part of the People's Partnership labors the COP with all of the sins of all of its partners simply because the COP is held to a higher standard by the electorate first, and then by cunning politicians who know only too well that in the team sport that politics is, the compromises that have to happen if governance is at all to occur makes that position a lie from in front, prompting Niccolo Machiavelli to coin the phrase that has since been bastardized and attributed to Basdeo Panday, that politics has no relation to morals. Imagine asking that same question to the same public but prompting with the preface, “Would you vote for the Congress of the People if it left the People's Partnership?”

Imagine the response triggered by such a prefix, to a jaded public desperate for something, anything like decency and morality in our politics, whose one and only grouse with the COP that it is STILL  a part of the PPG, can you imagine the numbers? But forget the COP having any chance at success as a stand alone party for a minute, have those in the United National Congress who are rumored to have commissioned that poll that never was a poll thought for a second the vast gash that an exiting COP would leave in all of their intentions, and the size of the hemorrhage of votes, especially in the questionably polled east west corridor?

The UNC may boast of having members in seats such as Diego Martins West, Central and North East, but their collective numbers together especially in relation to the post-apocolyptical 2010 to 2015 term would be barely enough to form a line at a St. James roti shop. No, for the People's Partnership to have value in the 2015 elections it needs the COP more than ever now, and like the old time calypso about the two bards fighting over what was more important in the pot after it was cooked, the hambone that flavored it or the rice that could be eaten, to the politically savvy the COP brings even more this time around and may well be responsible for the pot itself.

In the card game 'All Fours' the worst thing to hold in a six card game is the ace and the jack, because with the king and queen still out there to hang you, that hand is referred to as laugh and cry. That is where the UNC finds itself today and it would do well to stop the nonsense where the COP is concerned because, while it is the bigger more established party with war chests (plural) of campaign money, without the COP to bring some semblance of acceptability if not credibility outside the sixteen seats that they could safely call safe, they might well find themselves crying all the way to the Opposition side of the house.