FRENCH NAVY ARREST TAIWANESE FISHING VESSEL

In a political irony of biblical proportion, recently the French navy arrested a Taiwanese fishing vessel illegally fishing sharks for its fins in the Seychelles Exclusive Economic Zone. This was done under an Agreement ratified by the National Assembly barely one month ago. At the time all the SPPF Members of the National Assembly, together with Mr. Frank Elizabeth, the DP representative in the House, voted in favour of ratification whilst the SNP bunch abstained. The SNP gave some incomprehensible explanation as to why they were abstaining raising the issue of disputed sovereignty over the uninhabited Tromlin island between France, Mauritius and Madagascar as justification for abstaining. Many people at the time questioned the logic of the SNP, as both Mauritius and Madagascar are not known to have ever fought any of our battles. People were baffled as to why SNP were prepared to compromise the obvious benefits that Seychelles would derive under the agreement for the sake of not offending Mauritius and Madagascar by being seen voting in favour of the Agreement. This, despite the obvious benefits that the country would derive under the Agreement. In any event, both Mauritius and Madagascar had not raised this as an issue with the Seychelles Government.

This led Sir James Mancham to accuse SNP of being “more royalist than the King himself” and gives credence to the criticism that SNP does vote against certain things in the National Assembly for the sake of being seen to be against, although not necessarily warranted. The warped logic at the time seemed to be that clearly SNP was prepared to put the interest of both the Mauritians and Madagascans ahead of the interest of Seychelles and the Seychellois. This was contrary to DP’s slogan of “Putting Seychellois First” and Mr. Elizabeth was understandably uncomfortable to go down that route with SNP.

Ramkalawan, then secretly used the fact that Elizabeth voted with SPPF for ratification of the Agreement with France as justification for breaking the political alliance with DP. This, of course, was not the real reason for breaking the alliance and the fact that barely one month later the French Navy came to our assistance, is proof, if proof was ever needed, that Elizabeth did the right thing when he voted in favour of the ratification of the Agreement. Elizabeth, unlike the other SNP Members of the National Assembly, had the courage to put Seychelles and the Seychellois first and refused to swallow his principle for political convenience even if he knew at the time that this may very well cost him his seat in the National Assembly.

This incident clearly confirmed the political confusion apparent within the SNP ranks as they struggle to find a balance between what is good for the country (National Interest) and partisan politics. Barely one week after breaking the alliance and kicking Mr. Elizabeth out of the National Assembly for voting for ratification of an agreement which was clearly in the National Interest, Ramkalawan was seen surreptitiously speeding through the gates of State House to pick up his reward for doing what his political Masters in the SPPF had ordered him to do.

Ramkalawan, has not been the same since. Soon after, he was seen again going to State House to pay a second visit on the trot to the President for some undisclosed reason. However, this time around he came back and obstinately refused to print Le Nouveau Seychelles Weekly at Arpent Vert, giving the overall impression that the second visit with the President was to discuss plans how to close down Weekly after the paper has been openly critical of both Ramkalawan’s irrational behaviour and the SPPF in general.

There is definitely a political conspiracy going on between Ramkalawan and James Michel. However, Ramakalawan is yet to collect his reward from SPPF for his second dirty deed in a row and rumours have it that all will be announced in the budget soon. Whilst the public sector workers are expected to get a marginal increase in salary to cope with devaluation and the rapid increase in the cost of living, it is said that the SPPF has secretly agreed to give Ramkalawan a fat pension of R.21,000 per month for the rest of his life amongst other perks. The salaries of the MNA’s together with all the Ministers and Judges are also set to increase by huge margins. Funding to political parties is also set to increase ten folds since Ramakalawan has literally agreed to share the same political bed as the SPPF. Whatever his reason and motivation for behaving erratically of late, the supporters of the opposition in this country has every reason to be concerned by what is happening. Thus, they are also justified in questioning Ramkalawan’s behaviour, logic and fitness to continue to lead the party as leader. He has abruptly changed his political strategy and become more conciliatory towards the SPPF with nothing tangible to show for it! Surely there must be something suspicious going on!