Tackle Stuart’s work, not race

Prime minister-designate Stuart Young, SC, is destined to be a decisive factor one way or another in the coming election.

He is entering at a time when several of our public institutions remain broken, with low levels of public confidence, when crime and national security face lingering troubles, when income inequity expands, when our foreign exchange and debt-ridden economy face a guessing game with oil and gas uncertainties, when our foreign relations face unexpected challenges and when the society is drifting into increased ethnic polarisation.

He also cannot escape the serious political and legal consequences of last week’s Privy Council’s very damaging, expensive ruling over the appeal of the Minister of Finance vs a ruling in favour of the Auditor General. Was the Cabinet properly advised?

Could Mr Young lift his government’s reputation and credibility by proceeding with constitutional reform? He also has to shake off the scepticism left by the troublesome manner in which Dr Rowley made him PM-designate. How can he be his “own man,” escaping from the shadow and voice of his departing mentor?

Tough challenges, yes, but he must show early he has the mettle and attitude to help sanitise his party’s reputation.

In other words, the 50-year-old lawyer and current Minister of Energy is being left facing such a large package of problems that he will require as much support and co-operation as he can muster inside and outside his PNM party. These problems will not disappear or be solved in a short time. These same conditions will apply even if Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and the UNC win the elections.

Therefore, in Young’s case, the sooner Dr Rowley allows him to assume the PM’s office, the better he can prepare to put his leadership skills to the campaign test and to court his PNM party to elect him as political leader as well. It is easier to become a PM than a PNM political leader. A PM is elected by the majority of MPs in the House of Representatives. The PNM party’s one-man-one-vote election could create a party crisis if Young, who is of mixed parentage – East Indian mother (Priscilla Hosein-Young) and father of Chinese descent (Richard Young) – is not elected as a history-making political leader.

In the larger public space, Young has to raise the morale and political bar of the PM’s office – no broken promises, no arbitrary excesses of political power, cut down arrogance and bring some moral authority into the office.

All this if Young, the karate black belt, wants to positively transform the politics and governance of his party and the worried society. He quickly promised to “unite” the society, to be of “service to all,” etc. Hmmm. He will do well to cut down some of the spitefulness too.

In fact, when you listen to the voices of the people in print or electronically, their concerns are about the economy, yes, but more feverishly about public morality and the troubling style of political leadership.

That’s why the very expensive Jaiwantie Ramdass matter should be so instructive to Young.

Returning to the controversial topic of Young’s “race” and his suitability as PNM-sponsored PM, I wonder if politics brings out the worst or best in us. Or if its practice manual differs from our national anthem – where every creed and race find an equal place. So, too, whatever trace or street he or she comes from.

Whether it is he or anybody else, the issue is the person’s work, integrity – in short, his or her character. Not race.

Didn’t Martin Luther King tell us so repeatedly? Didn’t we – since 1962 – plead for multi-ethnic political parties and leadership?

As someone teasingly said last week: “Suppose UNC MP David Lee or Senator Jearlean John becomes UNC political leader?”

But the PNM campaign may well push Young as the long-awaited ethnic breakthrough. At least one thing is for sure – our citizens of Chinese ancestry will vote for him.

Young’s critics may find it more politically advantageous to scrutinise his performance as minister of energy or former minister of national security or even as adviser to Dr Rowley.

In fact, don’t be surprised if residents of Lal Beharry Trace in deep south, with a boomerang effect, begin to celebrate Young as a new-found “son of the soil.” And even vote for his PNM party.

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