Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, sur­round­ed by thou­sands of sup­port­ers and new faces from sev­er­al fresh can­di­dates on her slate, proud­ly de­clared that af­ter 15 years, she has suc­cess­ful­ly “purged” her par­ty.

Speak­ing at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Ma­coya as the UNC and its Coali­tion of In­ter­ests of­fi­cial­ly launched its 39 can­di­dates for the April 28 gen­er­al elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I have purged the pol­i­tics of caste, class, nepo­tism, fam­i­ly con­nec­tions, seg­re­ga­tion, dis­crim­i­na­tion and dy­nasty from the UNC.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was not an easy task and took her a decade and a half.

She then aimed what could be seen as a veiled at­tack against the founder of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and her for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader, Bas­deo Pan­day.

“It took me about 15 years to trans­form the UNC from a one-man show and hered­i­tary aris­toc­ra­cy in­to a mer­i­toc­ra­cy,” she said, adding, “Nepo­tism has been purged from the UNC!”

While she did not name any­one, Pan­day’s broth­er Sub­has was se­lect­ed for Na­pari­ma (1991-1995) and again for Princes Town be­tween 2000 and 2002. He al­so served as a min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry.

His daugh­ter and Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Po­lit­i­cal Leader Mick­ela Pan­day served as an MP be­tween 2007 and 2010 in Oropouche West un­der her fa­ther’s lead­er­ship.

Mean­while, in the lead-up to the elec­tion, the UNC faced sev­er­al res­ig­na­tions from mem­bers at the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive lev­el who have crit­i­cised the di­rec­tion and ethos of the par­ty.

Most no­table is Lar­ry Lal­la, who has now pub­licly de­clared his loy­al­ty to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Two of the five so-called “dis­si­dents” MPs (Rush­ton Paray and Ani­ta Haynes) have al­so not been re­tained by the par­ty to re­con­test their seats, while two oth­ers dropped out of the process (Dr Rai Rag­bir and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly).

Rod­ney Charles did not of­fer him­self for screen­ing, choos­ing in­stead to bow out of pol­i­tics.

The UNC leader said with its new con­fig­u­ra­tion, the par­ty is now tru­ly “the peo­ple’s par­ty.”

“The UNC will be suc­cess­ful be­cause we have high work ef­fi­cien­cy, a sym­pa­thet­ic dis­po­si­tion, fair-mind­ed con­sid­er­a­tion, and prop­er pro­fes­sion­al plans.”

Jux­ta­pos­ing her par­ty with the PNM, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the PNM un­der Stu­art Young was now a par­ty for the elites and priv­i­leged.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed that the PNM, along with “pop-up par­ties,” proves that nepo­tism is in full con­trol.

“No mer­it, and you be­come pres­i­dent. No mer­it, and you get a seat in Par­lia­ment. No mer­it, and you drop in from the top... No mer­it, and your fam­i­ly gets all the ma­jor work con­tracts ... Rank-and-file mem­bers of the PNM have no say,” she added.

“The UNC is not like the oth­er par­ties where your dad­dy’s mon­ey or your dad­dy’s work could buy a seat or the lead­er­ship.”

‘Any­one who does not serve the peo­ple will be re­moved’

She warned her can­di­dates to al­ways re­mem­ber to serve the peo­ple.

“Any­one who does not serve the peo­ple will be re­moved from of­fice!” she de­clared to loud cheers.

The UNC leader al­so asked her sup­port­ers to take a day off from work on elec­tion day to vote.

“You can sac­ri­fice one day off from work to se­cure your fu­ture for the next five years.”

She added, “Take Elec­tion Day off from work, go to vote ear­ly, and then, for the rest of the day, be­come our Elec­tion Day ma­chin­ery. Use your ve­hi­cles and car­ry every­one you know to vote. Use your phones to help or­gan­ise and call out peo­ple.”

The trade union pres­ence was felt with huge sup­port from the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), the Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), and the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU).

Led by Michael An­nisette, the SWW­TU mem­bers held signs aloft as for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste led the crowd from the podi­um with the chant, “Vote them out!”

One of the signs read, “Low wages are a crime against hu­man­i­ty.”

Bap­tiste sought to re­mind the bois­ter­ous crowd that the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion closed down Petrotrin, putting sev­er­al peo­ple out of work.

“Are we go­ing to take that?” Bap­tiste asked the crowd as they re­spond­ed with a re­sound­ing, “No!”

OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get warned the PNM, “The winds of change are blow­ing through the length and breadth of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Ro­get added, “The PNM is open­ly ad­mit­ting that they’ve failed T&T. In or­der for the coun­try to sur­vive, you have to ter­mi­nate the em­ploy­ment of Stu­art Young and his gov­ern­ment. Make him the short­est-serv­ing PM.”

The OW­TU leader, who has had a tu­mul­tuous re­la­tion­ship with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, her­ald­ed her as the new PM come April 29.

Mean­while, PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der claimed that PM Young will not win, as he’s not a like­able per­son.

COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, re­turn­ing to a UNC plat­form, de­scribed his now re­newed coali­tion part­ner, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as “un­par­al­leled, un­chal­lenged and the next PM of the coun­try.”

The UNC will field 34 can­di­dates, the PEP three, and the Con­gress of the Peo­ple two.