Sines of the times

The Italian Renaissance philosopher and statesman, Niccolò Machiavelli, described as an immoral cynic, a genius strategist and a wicked man inspired by the devil, famously maintained that politics has no relation to morals.

Facing an onslaught of corruption allegations, Basdeo Panday, the fifth Trinidad and Tobago (TT) Prime Minister, a veteran politician, trade unionist and lawyer nicknamed the “Silver Fox,” would knowingly repeat the matching maxim on a campaign platform during that country’s 2002 general elections the second in as many years that cemented his loss of power after six years at the tumultuous helm, concluding “Politics has its own morality.”  

Governments are far more dangerous than other elements within society, Machiavelli claimed, drafting his masterpiece, “The Prince” after he was banished from his beloved Florence. Now we are finding out from the embattled Government of Guyana that local politics also has a startling mathematics of its own.  Since it is down for the count and still in office some two weeks after the motion of no-confidence was carried, when backbencher, Charrandas Persaud suddenly defected in a stunning act that seems more Canada cut than clean conscience, the coalition APNU+AFC administration has argued he was bribed by Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo without offering any evidence, concrete, numerical or satellite. Persaud seems pure proof, like Machiavelli stressed that “One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived” even as the Coalition seemingly subscribes to “the promise given was a necessity of the past: the word broken is a necessity of the present.”