Why I chose the UNC
Gypsy promises extempo in Parliament THE Opposition PNM is going to conduct its general elections campaign using race as its trump card. So declares calypsonian/businessman now politician Winston Peters, the ruling UNC candidate for the Ortoire/Mayaro constituency in the following Election 2000 interview with News Editor CLEVON RAPHAEL. The 47-year-old bard, who dismisses the PNM’s political leader Patrick Manning as the worst leader the party ever had, says it is stupid logic to accuse him of selling out to the UNC.
UNC candidate calypsonian Gypsy (right)
with his father Woodford Mentor (centre)
and Gypsy’s son Anderson in Mayaro Saturday morning.
Photo: KENRICK BOBB
Q: Gypsy, or is it Mr Peters?
Gypsy: I am happy with however you choose to address me, Clevon.
Q: Very well Mr Peters, some of your detractors have accused you of selling out especially after having sung that immortal piece “Little Black Boy”...
Gypsy: (Over breakfast at a restaurant in Mayaro early Saturday morning): I am a Black person and I have heard it said that PNM is for Black people and UNC is for Indian people. But this cannot be so because if that were so who is Frankie Khan? He is of East Indian descent and he is the PNM candidate for Ortoire/Mayaro. It is okay for Khan to align himself with the PNM, but it is betrayal for Peters to align myself with the UNC. What stupid logic! But to the credit of both parties they each seek to project the true image of the cosmopolitan population that is Trinidad and Tobago. So I really cannot understand how I have become this great betrayer.
Q: Anyone who has followed your career over the past 32 years must know that you have always been socially conscious, but one hardly expected you to take this very courageous plunge into the rough world of partisan politics...why did you do it?
Gypsy: Clevon, the thing about this is that as a calypsonian you can only highlight the ills of the country in song, there is nothing else you can do about them. Long-term decisions about the future of the country are made in the parliament and I seek to represent my people at that high level. I represented my people in song for 32 years and the politicians for the most part have not responded positively to my pleadings, so I want to get into there to do something tangible about the ills which plague our society.
Q: Why did you choose the UNC over the PNM or the NAR?
Gypsy: I chose the UNC because I have been fortunate and old enough to see the operations of several political parties in this country and what I have seen over the last five years I haven’t seen any other party making similar accomplishments in any corresponding period.
Q: What has the UNC achieved that makes the party so extraordinary?
Gypsy: Clevon, you just drove from Port of Spain to come down to Mayaro, and I am sure you noticed that every bridge with the exception of one in Manzanilla that is now under construction, has been rebuilt. Every single one of them. Now I don’t understand for the life of me why in all the years of PNM in government that couldn’t have been done. I was born and raised in Mayaro and in five short years the UNC government has been able to supply Mayaro with a brand new hospital. Also I cannot understand why all those police stations built by our colonial masters were not repaired under successive PNM administrations. It took the UNC government just five years to repair or rebuild most of them. And do you know Clevon what took the cake, what really caused me to swing to the UNC, it was when I saw the UNC putting a primary school in the Beetham Estate. I said if they could show that kind of caring I had to be part of this caring administration.
Q: Your detractors are also saying that you always hated the PNM?
Gypsy: That is not so, that is not so. In 1966 I remember a truck turned over with us in Rio Claro, during a PNM motorcade. But I believe that since Dr Eric Williams died—May the good Lord rest his soul—the PNM has been slowly declining as far as leadership is concerned.
Q: Why would you make such a categorical statement Gypsy?
WP (In a raised voice) : Clevon, the facts are there to bear me out; and the worst leader the PNM has had in its lifetime is Patrick Manning. The worst!
Q: Gypsy, you are raising your voice and becoming quite emotional...do you feel that strongly on this leadership question?
Gypsy: Yes, Clevon. Because I want to express how bad the PNM’s leadership is today! It is the worst. We used to say that Chambers duncy but that was just picong, really. But this is no picong what I am saying here. I am not saying that Patrick Manning is not a good person. He is a good man, a good person but he is not a good leader. That is the reality of Patrick Manning, and he has not run this country well.
Q: Aren’t you being a bit unfair to Mr Manning, who served just one term as Prime Minister, Mr Peters, and wouldn’t his true potential as a leader come out if given another chance to lead the country, and didn’t he say if once again he’s Prime Minister he would take care of his people differently?
Gypsy: Thank God it was just one term, and am I being unfair to him? Clevon, Mr Manning has been going around with some10-point corruption list against the UNC but I want him, Mr Manning, let him tell me in the four years that he was Prime Minister, FIVE things that he has done. Name five substantial things that he has done. I want to let Mr Manning know that Dr Williams educated us to the point that nobody can fool us, not even the party he left behind—especially with Mr Manning at the helm. (Thumping the table) I cannot support Patrick Manning, you understand?!! I cannot support him and I personally believe that the only reason why Patrick Manning is still leader of the PNM is because Rowley was born in Tobago. He is the one who turned Trinidadians against Mr Robinson, who has done such a fine job in the service of Trinidad and Tobago, and he has done the same thing against Rowley, who would have been a better leader than Patrick Manning. I say so!
Q: If you should win your seat would you continue your calypso career?
Gypsy: Yes. Calypso is my career. Is now self I singing. And if it is at all permitted I am going to extempo in parliament because that is what I know to do best—sing meh kaiso and extempo. I sure if Mr Manning as a geologist could have brought stones in parliament to test them he would have done so (laughs). I would be the first member of Cabinet, if I am so appointed, who could and will sing calypso. I cannot give up calypso, it is what has me where I am today, and when I am elected I am going to ensure calypsonians get their just dues.
Q: Gypsy not many people know that you are a very successful businessman, why are you keeping this part of your life so extremely private?
Gypsy: There are three sides to a person, public private and religious so my private life is private, but we lived in America for a long while, I planted corn there and we own a recording establishment there, we own real estate. Whatever money I made as a young man we invested it and I have a good wife, a very good wife of 19 years who stays with me every step of the way, and that is the key to my success.
Q: I find it curious why hardly anyone in public life in Trinidad and Tobago likes to disclose his personal wealth ...what’s yours?
Gypsy: Well you said the right thing, they don’t like to disclose their personal worth and I am one of them (smiles), and I am not going to do it unless I am forced to. I am not going to disclose it for the newspapers, but I have nothing to hide anyway.
Q: Some your detractors I heard on Power 102 saying they are waiting on you with wet toilet paper at Skinner Park simply because you have joined the UNC....?
Gypsy: Before I decided to enter active politics I sang what I consider to be one of the best songs in my life “Yesterday’s Children”, and they pelted me, because I did not sing what they wanted me to sing; they wanted me to sing against the government then and they pelted me. So if I am a politician and they pelt me now, so be it! I cannot be bothered with that.
Q: How do you propose to deal with the corruption charges being levelled by the PNM against the UNC on the campaign trail?
Gypsy: I have never known any government in Trinidad and Tobago which wasn’t accused of corruption in one way or the other by the other side. When the PNM was in power everybody cried corruption and in some cases it was proven. The thing about the charges against the UNC is that they are not holding any water. If there is the PNM should take the evidence to the relevant authorities and the UNC has put in place mechanisms to deal with those charges.
Q: What in your opinion, Gypsy, are the priorities of this constituency?
Gypsy: That is what is important to me, Clevon. You see that question you asked me there? That is what is important to me and that is one of my main reasons for getting into this. I have stood on the sidelines and watched the young people of Mayaro march and lay down in the road, one of them losing a leg, cutting down coconut trees in order to protest to get jobs in Mayaro. The jobs exist and the truth is that they don't have to fight so hard but the problem is they are unemployable in the particular field they want to be employed. Nobody tells them that and somebody ought to have told them instead of lying down on the road they should clamour for the facility to get themselves qualified so that in future they would be made employable when the jobs present themselves. My job now is to alleviate that very same problem. We have a young and energetic youth force but we have to give them the facilities to equip themselves for the future and my job is to get those facilities for my young people.
Q: Gypsy, do you think race would play a major part in the upcoming election hustings?
Gypsy: Yes. Race will play an important part because for some reason or the other that is what the PNM is going to run its election campaign on, AGAIN! They have nothing else, that is their trump card. But I want the people to look carefully when they talk about race. What race are they talking about? The UNC in five years was able to fuse the races so that the party which in the past was viewed as an Indian party, is now reflecting the racial make-up of the country. How could you look at the UNC as a racial party? Because Basdeo Panday is the leader? So then PNM is an African party...you understand what I am saying? All three major parties are Trinidad and Tobago parties.
Q: Finally, do you think the UNC will win and by how many seats?
Gypsy: Even though my name is Gypsy, I don’t have a crystal ball so I cannot give you the number of seats but I have do doubt that the UNC will win and win handsomely.
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