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| Minister of Justice Chrislyn Moore |
What side of the fence is your Tobago-born Minister of Justice Christlyn Moore? As a self defined "eat ah fooder" of the UNC, (held Briefs from both Anand and Kamla) many persons have questioned her true political allegiance. It is no wonder that she has been described as a "straw man", a United National Congress (UNC) mouthpiece, timely introduced (for THA elections) and pretending to be a TOP affiliate to lure voters and fulfill the wishes of Kamla by securing Tobago and thus closing the circle.
Moore, an attorney at law from Lambeau, has been critical of the PNM lead administration of the Tobago House of Assembly, lead the Orville London. Moore much like a raging bull blew steam recently in the Senate, accusing London of maladministration and taking him to task about a statement he made recently about not forgiving Tobagonians if they did not vote for the PNM.
However, former minister and MP for Tobago East Rennie Dumas indicated that democracy was alive and well on the island, and is evident by the open show of support for the Opposition Tobago Organisation of the People, by its supporters.
"Everybody is everybody... TOP complains about victimisation, but the reality is that if you walk outside you would see taxi-drivers driving with TOP flags, people going into compounds of administrative offices flying flags in cars, on their windows, and its not a problem in any way.
"When Orville said he will 'not forgive', it was merely the old school teacher way about him. There is nothing more to it," he said.
When asked about Moore's attack, the former PNM government minister seemed unperturbed about her stance.
He said: "Moore is in a sense a straw man. She is selected from Trinidad and has taken this stance because of her relationship with the Prime Minister and the Attorney General, as she herself has explained."
He said Moore had no space in the electoral process in Tobago, and did not come to Tobagonians as a member of any political party, and certainly not the Opposition Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP).
Moore responded by saying Dumas was out of place to attempt to define her political identity and maintained that she is part of the executive of TOP.
But the way Dumas sees it, "(Moore) is attacking from the safety of having no relationship to us. People have to understand that she is their (the Prime Minister and the Attorney General's) champion, and is in fact, a UNC champion."
He said the UNC is "attempting to clothe her and cloak her in TOP clothes", and while he was not questioning Moore's 'Tobagonianess,' Dumas said, "She is not a TOP, she did not come to us as a member of TOP, she was not elected."
He further noted, Moore had no political cost to pay for her utterances. "She is like a guerilla taking free shots from behind the protected borders of a state; in this case, Trinidad," Dumas said. He charged that she was really nothing more than the mouthpiece of the UNC, "just like Anil (Roberts) and the others, always on the attack for the PP government".
Her status, according to him, was unlike Vernella Alleyne-Toppin and Dr Delmon Baker, who are TOP MPs. "In their case, they must pay because they were elected by the people of Tobago and whatever they say, will have a cost," Dumas added.
He said Moore's political stance is move to positioned herself for prime ministerial role. "Maybe she sees it as 'she is coming', after all, if Kamla could become PM then what's stopping Moore? When Vernella was acting PM, she thought she would be Prime Minister too. "Where is she now?" he asked with a half-laugh.
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