Shal­iza Has­sanali

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior Coun­sel Lar­ry Lal­la made his de­but on a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plat­form Sat­ur­day night, ex­press­ing con­cern about Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Lal­la, who re­signed from the UNC, was ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers at a PNM meet­ing in Tu­na­puna, where he raised ques­tions about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ca­pac­i­ty to serve as Prime Min­is­ter.

“I do not want to be dis­re­spect­ful,” Lal­la said, “but run­ning a coun­try like T&T is se­ri­ous busi­ness and re­quires a lot of time and en­er­gy from its Prime Min­is­ter.”

He re­ferred to sev­er­al pub­lic ap­pear­ances by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in­clud­ing an Eid func­tion last week.

“We all saw the Eid video, where she at­tend­ed the Eid func­tion and saw it fit to dis­re­spect that func­tion by an­nounc­ing Bar­ry’s con­stituen­cy. And we all saw the video and how she spoke. And we all heard how her speech sound­ed and how she fum­bled.”
He said such a sit­u­a­tion was not good for the coun­try “should she be­come prime min­is­ter.”

Since re­sign­ing from the UNC in Feb­ru­ary, it was the first time Lal­la mount­ed a PNM stage to ad­dress sup­port­ers, in­clud­ing PNM can­di­dates, Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young and for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

Lal­la has been on the grounds in the last few days sup­port­ing PNM can­di­dates.