Raphael Trotman: Faustian journey
Raphael Trotman came in for pungent criticism in the picket line of the Red Thread demonstration last week against the 50 percent increase for Cabinet members. That was natural. It was Trotman who denied that a huge increase was in the making in the near future.
It was Trotman who in defending the increase asked the nation to trust the Government. One placard called Trotman a liar. When interviewed by the media, many of the picketers castigated Trotman.
Trotman is not a transformational leader (he’s not the only one). He almost broke up the AFC when he demanded the presidential slot again for the 2011 election. The 2006 agreement cemented the rotational principle – in 2011, Ramjattan would be the presidential candidate. Trotman reneged on the document. He lost the battle, stayed away from the AFC and became a late starter in the 2011 campaign when Sheila Holder died. The brilliant strategy used by Trotman in the acquisition of the Speaker’s chair was a master stroke in coup plotting. The inelegant disagreement between APNU and AFC over the choice of Speaker was becoming divisive.
In stepped Trotman. Trotman led the PNC to believe (not APNU) that he was not PNC momentarily, but existentially he always will be. He presented to the PNC that he was not really AFC. He told the AFC that if secured the Speakership it would elevate the credibility of the AFC even though the AFC did not submit his name.
Trotman also told the AFC that if he became Speaker without the AFC’s endorsement, the AFC will still win because the AFC can tell Guyanese that the AFC got the Speakership. When the PNC agreed to give Trotman the Speaker’s chair, the AFC in fact did tell the nation that it secured the post. So everyone won.
The PNC got a Speaker it didn’t mind having. Trotman pleased both the PNC and AFC. The AFC’s standing did swell because it announced that the Speaker came from the AFC.
As the Tenth Parliament came to a close, Trotman, to use cricket language, bowled a doosra to get the night watchman’s wicket so to ensure an early victory the next morning. Suspecting that the PPP’s minority presidency can no longer endure the inexorability of the APNU-AFC pressure in Parliament, Trotman saw a form of inclusive governance coming. He made his move to secure his place in the configuration.
The occasion was when at the end of the Tenth Parliament, Speaker Trotman reserved huge praise for Chief Government Whip, Gail Teixeira. He knew in any blueprint of a working relation between the PPP and the combined opposition, Teixeira would be a key voice and he would need her support for his place under the sun of a joint PPP-combined opposition regime.
Trotman knew the authority of Teixeira; that it was Teixeira’s lava that she spewed at Ramkarran that caused him to exit the PPP’s leadership. Trotman then announced that of all the Parliamentarians in the Tenth Parliament, Gail Teixeira raised the bar highest than all others.
I was mentally immobilized on seeing this opportunism. I knew Teixeira since 1974 and I knew that even more than, Cheddi Jagan, Jagdeo, Rohee and Ramotar, Gail Teixeira has been the leading Stalinist in the PPP’s hierarchy. I would put only two persons in front of her – Mrs. Janet Jagan and Roger Luncheon. I replied to Trotman in one of my columns and cynically inquired if by bar he meant a bar of soap or chocolate. It certainly couldn’t be the moral or political bar or the bar of values that hold a nation intact. Then fate decapitated the body of emotions that Trotman nurtured for Teixeira.
A questionable young man told the nation that Trotman sexually abused him. And guess who the first PPP person was to lend credibility to the young man foolishness and called for police inquiry? It was none other than the lady that raised the bar – Gail Teixeira. Obviously fate dealt Trotman a bad hand. But he recovered. Others didn’t believe the crazy stories of sexual misconduct. I didn’t. I wrote a column condemning the young man.
Raphael Trotman is the second most brilliant political strategist Guyana produced after Forbes Burnham and for this he has the admiration of many insiders.
There were flashes of brilliance in how he strategized after the APNU-AFC Government was formed and got two ministerial portfolios. Which party Trotman belongs to – PNC or AFC? I cannot disclose the dimensions of his masterpiece because it would bring huge embarrassment to the new government and the leadership of both APNU and the AFC but especially the AFC. But I am willing to confidentially tell my political colleagues. Call me!
