RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA and

GAIL ALEXAN­DER

For­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) at­tor­ney gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s en­dorse­ment of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sparked strong re­ac­tions with­in the PNM, but Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young has re­mained silent.

Je­re­mie, who served as at­tor­ney gen­er­al in the PNM un­der for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, sur­prised many when he ap­peared on the UNC’s plat­form at Bhups­ingh Park, Pe­nal, on Mon­day night.

Je­re­mie de­clared that while he is a “child of the PNM” and a pa­tri­ot, he sees no per­son­al gain in his en­dorse­ment. Say­ing he knew Per­sad-Bisses­sar for over 30 years, Je­re­mie slammed the “race talk” which he said came from PNM’s plat­form re­cent­ly.

The for­mer AG said T&T was in cri­sis, peo­ple were not bet­ter off now than ten years ago and urged the pop­u­la­tion to vote for change and the UNC.

His move drew con­dem­na­tion from key PNM fig­ures.

Re­spond­ing to Je­re­mie’s en­dorse­ment while in Mara­bel­la yes­ter­day, Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Faris Al-Rawi ex­pressed dis­may.

He said, “As a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al and as the per­son who is still man­ag­ing the Pi­ar­co Air­port en­quiry mat­ter, I was shocked to see John Je­re­mie on a UNC plat­form be­cause the record in court, the record on Hansard and the record in pub­lic is that Mr Je­re­mie pros­e­cut­ed the crim­i­nal­i­ty and al­le­ga­tions against the UNC.”

Al-Rawi re­mind­ed the me­dia that Je­re­mie’s tenure as at­tor­ney gen­er­al was marked by le­gal ac­tion against el­e­ments of the UNC, in­clud­ing the in­ter­na­tion­al­ly scru­ti­nised Pi­ar­co Air­port cor­rup­tion scan­dal.

“I say crim­i­nal­i­ty be­cause peo­ple went to jail in the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, and I say al­le­ga­tions with re­spect to mat­ters that are be­fore the court at present,” Al-Rawi added.

“He (Je­re­mie) is the sub­ject of a Privy Coun­cil con­dem­na­tion in re­la­tion to the Chief Mag­is­trate mat­ter and he is the man who pros­e­cut­ed that there were al­le­ga­tions of sig­nif­i­cant cor­rup­tion which is be­fore the courts right now, so I will be very care­ful on how I speak about that against peo­ple that he stood up on a plat­form last night rep­re­sent­ing, mean­ing the UNC.”

High­light­ing the irony of Je­re­mie’s en­dorse­ment of the UNC, Al-Rawi con­tin­ued, “To say that Mr John Je­re­mie has demon­strat­ed an in­cred­i­ble con­tra­dic­tion is an un­der­state­ment.” 

He de­scribed Je­re­mie as “a blue mar­ket crab, tied up snug­ly over a pot of boil­ing wa­ter, about to make his way to­wards a callaloo for a Sun­day lunch.”

Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh mean­while ques­tioned Je­re­mie’s moral char­ac­ter.

Deyals­ingh said, “If Mr Je­re­mie wish­es to as­so­ciate him­self with the most cor­rupt gov­ern­ment in the his­to­ry of this coun­try, I wish him luck. If he (Je­re­mie) feels con­fi­dent in the bo­som of the moral­i­ty of An­cel Ro­get, Phillip Alexan­der, Roodal Mooni­lal and Anil Roberts, it says more about his char­ac­ter. He is stained by his as­so­ci­a­tion with them.”

For­mer PM and PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley dis­missed Je­re­mie with an off­hand What­sApp re­mark soon af­ter he ap­peared at the UNC meet­ing.

“I have five dogs, and I’m handy with a shov­el, so John Je­re­mie does not faze me or the PNM,” Row­ley said.

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds mean­while lashed out with scorn. He said, “Hell hath no fury like a politi­cian who had an un­jus­ti­fied sense of en­ti­tle­ment and feels de­nied of it. This does not anger me; it sick­ens me and makes me piti­ful of the likes of him and the St Joseph ex-priest ...”

For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne took a more mea­sured tone.

“It’s a sur­pris­ing de­ci­sion on his (Je­re­mie’s) part, but we are blessed to live in a democ­ra­cy in which in­di­vid­u­als are free to make their own po­lit­i­cal de­ter­mi­na­tions,” Browne said. “I’m not go­ing to do like those in an­oth­er par­ty who spew the low­est bile and ven­om at those with whom they have po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ences. As al­ways, I sin­cere­ly wish John Je­re­mie and his fam­i­ly the very best.”

Prime Min­is­ter Young, con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, did not re­spond.

Je­re­mie’s pub­lic ap­pear­ance fol­lowed that of Kennedy Swarats­ingh, an­oth­er Man­ning-era PNM min­is­ter, who en­dorsed Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly when he ap­peared at a UNC meet­ing in St Joseph.

Back­ing from Cud­joe, Abu Bakr

On the oth­er hand, Je­re­mie re­ceived pub­lic back­ing from Prof Sel­wyn Cud­joe, whose en­gage­ment with the PNM dates back to at least the 1990s, dur­ing which he has been an ac­tive sup­port­er and com­men­ta­tor on its poli­cies and lead­er­ship. Cud­joe said Je­re­mie picked the cor­rect side.

“PNM has failed peo­ple con­sid­er­ably, es­pe­cial­ly Black Trin­bag­o­ni­ans. We need to have jobs for our peo­ple and ed­u­ca­tion. Those are the keys to a trans­formed Trin­ba­go. Now is the time to take the coun­try to high­er heights of moral­i­ty and in­tel­lec­tu­al hon­esty and be faith­ful to the peo­ple on the ground, not the elites,” he said.

Fuad Abu Bakr, leader of the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion (NNV), echoed sen­ti­ments of dis­il­lu­sion­ment with­in Afro-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ties and high­light­ed grow­ing cross-racial sup­port for the UNC.

“There is dis­af­fec­tion on both sides. Some of what Je­re­mie is say­ing is true. I come from a con­stituen­cy that is pre­dom­i­nant­ly PNM, and it is ab­solute­ly de­prived and ne­glect­ed,” Bakr said.