Who is popular today?

THE EDITOR: It seems as if the PNM is suffering from a very bad case of "tabanca" after its recent general election defeat. This tabanca is, apparently, causing some of its frontline members to make incomprehensible utterances.
Faris Al-Rawi, former attorney general and former minister of rural development and local government, who lost his San Fernando West seat, is one who is taking this loss really hard. He seems to be vacillating between tabanca and "tootoolbay."
On May 6, he told his followers to "expect six months of terror, torture, lies, frivolity and persecution" from the new UNC alliance government.
He also said that "...we must be wary that we are in a war...so get ready because they have malicious intent."
Al-Rawi, a self-proclaimed descendant of the Prophet Muhammad (unto whom be peace), found it fit to try and alarm the population with his belligerent rhetoric.
As if that was not bad enough, Al-Rawi on June 6 stated that the government was going "to fire the near 11,000 workers at CECEP, as well as the over 4,000 workers at the Forestry National Reafforestation and Watershed Rehabilitation Programme."
Thus did he try to sow further fear in the hearts of people.
Another person with a serious tabanca is Marvin Gonzales, former minister of public utilities and former minister of national security.
On May 15, he said the scrapping of the Water and Sewage Authority's transformation plan would lead to "corruption and mismanagement between some union leaders and politicians."
After 48 years of PNM governance between 1956-2025, 27 per cent of the population has water on a 24-hour basis. That is certainly something to be proud of. Corruption has nothing to do with those dismal figures.
The PNM has also been busy blasting the government for its response to the threats issued by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
It is incredibly strange that for the last ten years under the PNM, TT and Venezuela have had friendly relations. However, less than two months after a new government was installed, Venezuela suddenly accused TT of being a transit point for "terrorists" looking to overthrow its government.
Many were angered by the response of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
History has proven time and again that if a country seeks to appease a dictator, it always leads to war and not peace.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain learned this the hard way. On September 28, 1938, he and German Chancellor Adolf Hitler signed the Munich Accord. It allowed Hitler to annex the Sudetenland which was part of Czechoslovakia.
Upon his return to London on September 30, Chamberlain waved the agreement and proclaimed, "I believe it is peace for our time." By March 1939, Hitler had seized all of Czechoslovakia and the world was on its way to all-out war.
In February 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimean Peninsula. The Western world and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) alliance did nothing because Ukraine was not a member. Eight years later, in February 2022, Russia expanded its reach by again invading Ukraine from Belarus, Crimea and Russia. That war is ongoing.
Persad-Bissessar was absolutely right to speak out in the way she did. It is better to be a mouse that roared than a cockroach that croaked.

LINUS F DIDIER

Mt Hope
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