Dear Editor,
I have publicly expressed the opinion that Priya Manickchand’s delivery was not written for her. I have taken the position that given the way the PPP operates, I could have envisaged a situation where Minister Manickchand was told to go there blazing. But I doubt the actual speech was written for her. Ms Manickchand is one of the big contenders for successor to the PPP’s gerontocracy and because of that she is allowed excessive liberties.
It was Ms Manickchand as the only PPP person, not the only Minister, but only PPP person who openly disagreed with the court’s ruling in favour of then Commissioner of Police Henry Green with regard to the rape allegation. She is the only Minister who went on Benschop Radio. If there are others, I don’t know about them. I know when he was with the PPP, Mr Ramkarran refused to give Benschop Radio an interview.
Minister Manickchand does these things to up her profile because she knows she is in the race to succeed those in the house of troglodytes at Freedom House whose leadership is coming to an end. There is a heated competition going on among five younger PPP apparatchiks for that position. If you look at Robert Persaud’s media outfit INews, you can clearly see that Robert Persaud is in the race. INews gives negative coverage to Ashni Singh, Irfaan Ali and Priya Manickchand, who are President Ramotar’s favourites.
It was INews that first carried the photograph of the way Ashni Singh looked after he exited the car in a vehicular incident. Attorney General Anil Nandlall is in the arena too.
He told the media that he disagreed with the daily quotes in all the daily newspapers from the Rodney Commission that vilified the PNC and were paid for by GINA. He told the media that it was in bad taste. Dr Luncheon fired back and publicly castigated Nandlall by saying; “He wasn’t speaking for me or the Cabinet.”
I think Ms Manickchand went to the US function with the intention of blasting away to keep her profile going. It was her language. When it caused a national scandal, she obviously called her backers to come to her rescue. President Ramotar was out of the country so Dr Luncheon took his role. To save Ms Manickchand, Dr Luncheon did the most logical thing – he said that it was a speech the government agreed on.
I am surprised that all the opposition politicians and critical letter writers believe Dr Luncheon. It looks good to them because they think the government is now in a bind because it wasn’t Minister Manickchand only. But the government came to the rescue of Minister Manickchand. And Dr Luncheon has got away with it. That is all. They couldn’t leave her out in the cold because the clamour for her resignation would have been unstoppable. She got off because the country was told that the culprit was not her but the government itself.
Ms Manickchand is one of those favoured by Messrs Luncheon and Ramotar in the leadership race for one simple reason – she is one of two among the five contenders who is open to being a messenger in power. Robert Persaud is feared because it is believed he would let Jagdeo run the show. I am just surprised that we believe Dr Luncheon about this speech thing.
Finally, it makes sense to protect Ms Manickchand, because if she was left being the nasty person, then it opens her up for American displeasure if she succeeds Ramotar as PPP leader. All of that is inoperable now because the government said she was merely the messenger. She was not. She went to the function and did what she always does – behave as if she belongs to a section of Bourda Market.
Yours faithfully,
Frederick Kissoon
