POLITICAL PARTIES USE OF RESPONSIBLE BEHAVIOUR

[00:00:00] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5. [00:00:08] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:09] Speaker C: We are hearing you loud and clear. [00:00:12] Speaker B: All right. This morning I come to Faisal about every morning at 6:45 where my workplace is. My, my, my housing development. I'm doing a housing development if I last 10 years. [00:00:27] Speaker C: Interesting. [00:00:28] Speaker B: All right. [00:00:29] Speaker C: I'm happy to hear that, man. I'm happy to hear that. Welcome to the program this morning as we have a little brief conversation with you as it relates to the political climate that is at hand. And I want to get your thoughts. We are in the thick of an election year. The air is thick, it's out there, you know, from your years in office to now. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:00:48] Speaker C: What changes would you have seen happening when you were on the campaign trail years ago as to what you were seeing happening on the trail now, especially given the party that you would have represented back then? [00:01:00] Speaker B: Well, I think that, you know, there's too much irrelevancies in the political campaigning. Too much irrelevancies, if I may take the opportunity to say so. Devi, one of the things I try to avoid on the political platform and in the parliament is unnecessary, Pekong, unnecessary. Throwing words at people across the floor. And I tried to stick to the issues and I felt that in that way I got across my message much better. This is why, you know, I have a personal opinion, a personal view about, you know, the manner in which people are degraded on platforms and what have you. I don't think that's necessary. I think it takes away from the messaging. I think, you know, the role of a politician and especially an election is to really educate and inform people and win their vote to solve the problems and deal with the issues in the country. And I think that is what is missing right now in the debate. I think, I think that we are focusing on a lot of things that are really peripheral issues to what are the real problems in the country. [00:02:10] Speaker C: And I thank you very much for your thoughts. I would put you on pause for a brief moment about a minute or two as I take a commercial break. At 7:30 those bills got to be paid. We'll be back with more stick and stay. [00:02:24] Speaker D: Say goodbye to those unwanted surprises with Always pads for your everyday comfort. With our rapid dry technology and our 100 leak guard protection system we give you all day, all night peace of mind. You can always rely on always Maxi and ultra thin pads three times the protection. 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[00:05:35] Speaker A: On the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5. [00:05:53] Speaker C: Once again, welcome back to the Morning rumble here on Freedom 106.5 FM. Now there was a media release about the Council for Responsible Political Behavior starts monitoring of the 2025 election campaign. Now this Council that has been formed. What are your thoughts on this council you mentioned a few moments ago about how you handled matters in the Parliament, dealing with what is on the agenda rather than attacking persons personal character. Now that this council. Has this council ever existed before in your best knowledge? [00:06:31] Speaker B: Well, yeah, the Council functioned in the last elections too, as far as I remember. No, I think the Council is a good idea. I think it's something worthwhile. I think that something is necessary in the. In the politics. It has no legal status, of course, and all it's trying to do is create some moral foundations and to have people behave in a manner that is, you know, of a higher level, with more integrity and what have you. I think part of the subtle thing about the council is that it's true that trying to get people to deal with the issues in the country rather than personalities. Although somewhere along the line, you know, personalities will have to enter the free. For example, two things come into mind immediately. One, the appointment of Mrs. Camille Robinson Regis as Attorney General without a practicing certificate. And secondly, the whole incident of bullying, whether it's 33 years ago or four years ago, what have you, whether it's about Mrs. Bisesa and claims about her. All of these things will come in because you're talking about leadership and you're talking about responsible leadership for the future of the country. So somewhere along the line you will have to examine the character of people on the platform. But I think there are very decent ways to do that also. And I think if people, for example, to subject themselves to more in depth interviewing by the media and debates in the country. I am one for national debates in the country. I think that we will go much deeper into developing a sense of what kind of leader is best able to carry forward the country at this point in time. Because the country is in a bad state. Don't mind me saying that as a politician, the country is in a very bad state. Very, very bad state. There is hopelessness in the country. But at the same time, what I am fearful about is also the apathy of the population in the midst of that hopelessness. You know, people, people just. I like to use the term silent spectators to turn to their plight, an oncoming plight. And I'm very worried about that. Very, very worried about that. [00:08:44] Speaker C: The thing about it is when you look at persons calling people Oreo and this recent debacle with the, the, the, the statements on the Rawan, you know, persons felt a bit peeved about it. You know, people talked. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Worse than that, I think was Mr. Stuart Young's statement in Parliament about Kamala Prasad. B says, but then, but then, but. [00:09:09] Speaker C: Then we might argue that. Right, but this is that statement. [00:09:11] Speaker B: No, no, no, David. It's not a matter of argue that that happened and that was. That was nasty, that was bad and no more amount of apology. I think the speaker allowed him to get away and I think that things were done in a favor to bring it to a quick halt. But. But in another, in another society, in another place that things like that, where you desecrate a person's personality to that extent, especially women, and then you come and you claim that you have this very great love for women and women's rights and so on, I think that let's not sidestep that real issue. [00:09:43] Speaker C: But the thing about it, for me, I am looking at it being. I'm looking at statements being made in a political platform before, before an audience, as opposed to what was referred to as a hot mic incident. It was said in Parliament he didn't go out on a platform to try to pass his judgment or his peacock against her. It was said thinking the mic was off and it was just them in the room talking. However, as opposed to people taking a political platform before an audience. I'm just asking you. [00:10:09] Speaker B: You are making a lame excuse move on hot mic or no hot mic. It is a statement that was made and it came out in the public. [00:10:18] Speaker C: While I agree it should not have been made and came and come out to the public, I think we are making. I mean, at the end of the day, I look at it in two different aspects. You purposefully going on a platform and calling somebody making racist or using spiritual remarks against another person on a platform in a campaign, as opposed to you're in a private room or in a particular area and somebody happened to tape you and it come out. I don't know, it's night and day for me. But as I go down, you mentioned that this council that has been formed and has been operative for years now, they have no legal standing. So then what are they really there to do? If something is moving against the ethics of the code of conduct, what sort of redress can happen? How can they act? [00:11:02] Speaker B: There's not going to be any legal address. What they are hoping to do is to sway public opinion by ruling whatever you want to put that in, by ruling on how the parties behave and hope that the public will take that into consideration in terms of how they cast their vote eventually. [00:11:24] Speaker C: So basically is an advertising agency then you dare to make a pronouncement on something? Because if there is no real. [00:11:29] Speaker B: No, I think that an organization that has the Right. People heading it, people of integrity and people who in the eyes of the public can be trusted. I think such an organization can have a great moral influence upon the opinions of people. [00:11:46] Speaker C: Recently a lot of persons have been. [00:11:47] Speaker B: The Carter center, for example. [00:11:49] Speaker C: The what center? [00:11:50] Speaker B: The Carter center in the United States. [00:11:52] Speaker C: Oh, noted recently a lot of persons have been removing themselves and distancing themselves from the United National Congress. Could this be attributed, based on your humble and respected opinion, to the political behavior they see in outward and the alliances that the party is now forming? [00:12:08] Speaker B: Devi, to be truthful to you, I don't think that all of these resignations are going to have any great impact upon the outcome of the elections. At every election that I have been involved in and I've been involved in elections since 1966 with the DLP. That's quite a long time ago when my uncle fought elections as a member of parliament for superior, which she was. I have seen this where people don't get what they want. They don't get their seat, they don't get X, they don't get Y, they don't get some money in their pocket, they fall out on the margins. And I'm seeing that happening at this point in time. So I'm not worried about that at this point in time. It's going to be a close fight in my view. I agree with Dr. Hamid Ghani in that regard. It's going to be a close fight and you're going to sway one way or the other within about three or four seats. I think that is, that is what's going to happen. But I don't think that the smaller parties are going to have the impact that they hope that they're going to have and so on. Like how, you know, the COP had an impact or how the ONR of which I was a part in 1981, I was the deputy political leader with Carl Hudson Phillips. 91,000 votes and no seats. But you know, we had an impact. [00:13:28] Speaker C: I often wonder about that type of impact. When you say we have an impact, I would like you to briefly elaborate on what that impact does. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Well, because because of the three way fight, the PNM were able to, to get more seats and slip by. But I think that in the 1981, 81, 80, 81, when I, when I got involved with the ONR, I could have been involved with the ULF or whatever, but I thought that there was something more important in this society that was necessary which was to get a movement for change. And I think one of the things that the ONR succeeded in doing in 1981 was in fact, it let people know that you can change a government. And it's not wrong to go and try to vote differently or stick to the issues or have a more decent level of politics. I lost my seat in Orbuzzi, but it was very interesting that when you fought against the ULF in a seat like oroPouch, you'll get 500 votes or maybe 1200 votes. I got 5500 votes on two occasions which showed that, you know, that people were thinking, you know, in a seat like that, which is a seat now held by Dave Tancoum, what do you. [00:14:38] Speaker C: Think will be the game changers for both the UNC and the PNM in this upcoming general election? What do you think that if this is done, would be a game changer for both political parties? We start off with the, with the unc. What do you think would be a game changer? When I say a game changer, based on the fact that we are seeing this rhetoric happening with the political climate and how we feel, we're talking about things that in my opinion does not stand up really against the nationalistic issues that we are facing with some communities are getting water. We're talking about an economy that has, you know. So what do you think that will be game changers that if this is done in your respective opinion, you're outside looking in. If they do this, this can take it to maybe one of the marginal seats in the constituencies. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Well, David, one of the first things that I find is that people are not trusting the parties. The level of trust has broken out. Mistrust is very high. People's expectations that they're going to get anything done by the parties by voting for them at this point in time, walking the streets, talking to people, those expectations are very, very low. And I think that is contributing to the apathy of the population in terms of wanting to vote. Is my vote going to worth anything? But at the same time, people must think that, you know, we have to probably get more aggressive as a voter and as a population before the election as well as after election. We have a couple of days, maybe a good month to demand of the political parties what it is we want to change in the country. I think there are four or five key things that we need to deal with. A good democracy, a good country is built on certain fundamental pillars. For example, is built on jobs and people have sustainable jobs. Not like, no, everything is on contract and you're not sure what's happening. And you go to a bank and because you have a contract, you can't get a mortgage loan for 30 years or what have you. Then the health care in the society, the health care, I mean, it's a joke that you hoping what a practical hospital, a practical airport. And then you go and Dr. Tilak Singh speaks about it and you curtail his freedom of speech by taking a decision to send the man on administrative leave. Ideal Singh says, but the minister would have had some kind of hand in causing the wrhe to send the man on administrative leave, although the minister came back and said, you know, he had no hand. It doesn't work like that in the politics. Then the third thing is shelter for people. Shelter for people. That's a big issue in this country. And the fourth thing is the education system. The education system that is not producing people for the future world. And if you don't deal with those things, you have problems. The biggest one in my mind is freedom of movement and security. I wouldn't say freedom of speech. And to the extent I would have Talked about that 10 years ago, because I think social media and a station like yours, freedom for which I compliment you, you know, has allowed, allowed the voice of people to, to really come out in, in the open, even if they are anonymous voices or what have you. But social media and talk radio has done a lot to foster a greater level of freedom of expression. I also am very thrilled with the quality now and forthrightness of some of the editorials in the Trinidad Guardian, especially over the last couple of weeks, you know, there has been a change in terms of what's happening. I'm looking at the more in depth reporting of your reporters on issues, especially on your Sunday papers. And I'm saying to myself, you know, we are getting some braver journalism in the country and that is good. So that's why, you know, I feel a little less fearful for freedom of speech. Now. I also look at, you know, how you guys are challenging the politicians at press conferences and so on. All that is very good, David. All that is very good. [00:18:38] Speaker C: I thank you for that. Now, let's look a little bit very quickly on the. As we continue with the behavior and the ethics of politicians in this campaign, the alliance being formed between the PP and the unc, a lot of controversy around that because he would have said certain things against the honorable opposition leader. However, they are now in cahoots. Maybe apologies went down, we talked about a few moments ago, unacceptable behavior. [00:19:03] Speaker B: The danger of that is, David, can people hold on to those positions that they are taking or is it just that they are taking a convenient position for politics? You know, in politics you have a lot of people just use people, abuse the people afterwards and discard them. That is part of the politics. And one of the things is how are you going to sustain that relationship if you win an election? That is the challenge and that is going to be a tremendous leadership challenge. Especially when you deal with strong characters like Philip Alexander or Kesar from the OWTU and so on. These are very strong, strong minded people. And Mrs. Bisesa, I think she has a very good chance to win this election. I think so because of the hopelessness in the population. It's very possible the population is just going to vote against the PNM rather than vote for the unc. But it could be a vote against a PNM that come out very strongly because you're beginning to get rumblings on the ground. I'm talking about south, I'm not talking about north right now, I'm talking about south and central where I am. So I think the UNC has a very, very good chance of winning the election, which I didn't see six ago, like, like I'm seeing now. But, but I think that the challenge will be having one. You know, what are the rules for governance between the parties that are coming into this alliance that's going to cause it to sustain? [00:20:36] Speaker C: Why I asked you that question is because of the fact that we talked about the hot mic incident and things that Philip Alexander would have said and yet still we. Are we upset about the hot mic? We can't accept the apology just like that, but we could just bridge a fence, put a gap out there, close the gaps and close ranks and bring in these political entities. Is it that the UNC feels that they cannot win this general election on their own, that they must have a coalition of parties to come together. That's the consensus I'm getting out there. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Well, that's a question that best have to be put to the leadership of the uncle. The UNC has had the capacity to win an election on its own before it did so under Mr. Pandey. As a coalition, it came together with the people's partnership and won an election. But I think that the more you have a one to one fight or two way fight in the country, it's going to be better to displace the PNM than if you have the smattering of votes like happened with Mr. Ramesh Lawrence Mirage when he, when 300 votes made the difference in Tanapuna's seat or 273 votes or something like this. So I think that, you know, people have that in their mind that these small smattering number of votes can in fact create havoc in the final result. [00:21:59] Speaker C: Because in the last general election in 2020, we had 823 votes separated with the People's National Movement and United National Congress. And that was between Aloy Hunt and Terence Dalzing. [00:22:12] Speaker G: Yeah. [00:22:13] Speaker B: And then you had 1,000 and something in the Trewanas east seat with Mohib and somebody else there. And then Minister of Agriculture. [00:22:22] Speaker C: Do you think Kamala Posal Biseso would have missed an opportunity to align herself with Gary Griffith's party in strengthening the coalition against the government of the day? [00:22:31] Speaker B: I think, you know, Gary Griffith is a very good, good, good person. He has many, many different kinds of skills. But to me, sometimes Gary is a little bit impetuous. And if he can, he has to learn how to control that. And he's another very strong character. And maybe Mrs. Bisesa made her own assessment of whether she can work with him in the future. But I have a lot of respect for Mr. Gary Griffith's ability. He's quite a quick thinker and he's action oriented. [00:23:04] Speaker C: Mr. Ramachand, I want to say thank you very much. I have to leave it here at this moment as my time is upon me at this moment. I want to thank you very much for chatting with us here on freedom and I encourage you to not be a stranger and we'll talk as the political climate thickens, as the election draws near. [00:23:18] Speaker B: Devi, I ran the Panchayat program with Shamun Mohammed for 15 years, you know. [00:23:23] Speaker C: I know that. I know that. Listen, it was an honor when I heard, when I talked to you this morning and I saw it. It was an honor. I know that. I know I am filling some very big shoes here, but I am holding on at the moment. I'm holding on at the interim. [00:23:39] Speaker B: You wouldn't believe this. I was unceremoniously asked to leave in 2010 when I entered the election. [00:23:46] Speaker C: Well, I mean, when you enter the. Exactly, exactly. It's unwritten rules, so to speak. [00:23:56] Speaker B: I'm not complaining, David, but I look back all of this with a sense of humor. [00:24:01] Speaker C: Well, it's good that we could laugh about it. But I do remember you make my pause raised when we talk about that, because I did remember. And I'm thinking to myself, wow, you know, I'm really sitting down in a position here behind the greats, you know, that would have passed through. And I thank you very much as the Americans, the state. We thank you for your service. I do thank you for what you have done to building the morning show here on 106.5. [00:24:25] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:24:26] Speaker C: So. So no stranger, no stranger to the station and thank you so much. We will chat again in the not too distant future. Have yourself a good afternoon, a good morning. Bye bye. All right. [00:24:36] Speaker A: The best insight, Instant feedback, Accountability. The all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.