UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieves that En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young is un­qual­i­fied to be prime min­is­ter of T&T. While she de­scribed Young as “im­ma­ture, class­less, and rude,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that his eth­nic­i­ty was caus­ing prob­lems with­in the par­ty.

Jump­ing in­to the PNM’s in­ter­nal af­fairs and voic­ing con­cerns about Young’s role in the par­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “While I agree that Young is to­tal­ly un­qual­i­fied for be­ing PM, the coun­try knows the truth, the fi­as­co oc­cur­ring in the PNM re­gard­ing its lead­er­ship is main­ly dri­ven due to Stu­art Young’s eth­nic­i­ty. We saw it when Ka­malud­din was by­passed; we saw it when Im­bert was by­passed, and now we see it with Stu­art.”

She added that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, the PNM’s po­lit­i­cal leader’s at­tempt at “dam­age con­trol can­not dis­tract from the fact that he is afraid to call in­ter­nal elec­tions in the PNM. There was much com­men­tary about the UNC in­ter­nals, which have nev­er been post­poned un­der my tenure as leader. We had our in­ter­nal elec­tions, and the op­pos­ing slate was dec­i­mat­ed. How­ev­er, Row­ley seems to be run­ning scared from PNM mem­bers.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in a press re­lease yes­ter­day, al­so al­leged that peo­ple sup­port­ive of PNM Min­is­ter and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings “have reached out to the UNC in at­tempts to gain as­sis­tance to go af­ter” Young.

“We have made it clear we want no part of PNM’s in­fight­ing,” she added.

“The PNM is at an all-time low if these two are the lead­ing con­tenders for lead­er­ship,” she added.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader used the PNM’s is­sues to re­it­er­ate UNC’s call for in­de­pen­dent elec­tion ob­servers for the gen­er­al elec­tion. She ques­tioned why Dr Row­ley is “so hell-bent against elec­tion ob­servers.”

She al­so gave an up­date on UNC’s screen­ing of gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees, say­ing it was un­der­way.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley for a re­sponse but did not re­ceive one up to late yes­ter­day. Cum­mings al­so did not re­ply to a What­sApp query and email on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment.