Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) leader Mick­ela Pan­day is ques­tion­ing if Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so “purged” her mem­o­ry as she re­spond­ed to the UNC leader’s at­tack on her­self and her late fa­ther, Bas­deo Pan­day.

Speak­ing at the Macaulay Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre in Clax­ton Bay on Thurs­day evening, Pan­day once again found her­self de­fend­ing the in­de­pen­dence of her po­lit­i­cal par­ty in the face of ac­cu­sa­tions that it is be­ing fund­ed by the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment to siphon the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress' sup­port.

When the UNC and its Coali­tion of In­ter­ests of­fi­cial­ly un­veiled its 39 can­di­dates last Sat­ur­day at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Per­sad-Bisses­sar proud­ly de­clared that she has fi­nal­ly purged the par­ty of nepo­tism and from be­ing a “one-man show.”

This was seen as a crit­i­cism aimed at for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day who al­so had his daugh­ter Mick­ela and broth­er Sub­has in the Par­lia­ment.

But Mick­ela Pan­day has fi­nal­ly re­spond­ed to that veiled crit­i­cism and re­tort­ed, “Maybe when the leader purged the par­ty, she purged the his­to­ry and for­got my beloved fa­ther fought the PNM his en­tire life. A par­ty for over 20 years that tried re­lent­less­ly to im­prison him. And I would sup­port the PNM? They should be ashamed of them­selves.”

Pan­day said the stress dur­ing that pe­ri­od of PNM per­se­cu­tion still af­fects her moth­er.

“So it is be­yond be­lief, to see mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion who knew me grow­ing up as a child, stoop so low, es­pe­cial­ly now af­ter my fa­ther’s pass­ing. But to­day I can stand up for my­self and I will speak for my fa­ther,” Pan­day said.

The PF leader al­so re­it­er­at­ed that her par­ty is not fund­ed by the PNM, and she is will­ing to open its ac­counts to prove it.

“Do we look like we are be­ing fund­ed by the PNM? You see any maxi out­side? You see any tas­sa? Any moko jumbie? No. Look at our cam­paign and now look at the UNC's and PNM's cam­paign and ask who fund­ing them?”

The PF is promis­ing to change the im­age of politi­cians and bring an end to the “who thief less” de­bate.

“So, when you see a politi­cian, you don't cuss them, but you cross the road to shake their hands.”

From a pol­i­cy per­spec­tive, The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) is promis­ing to raise the min­i­mum wage if elect­ed to lead the coun­try.

It is one of sev­er­al ini­tia­tives the par­ty is promis­ing aimed at low­er­ing the cost of liv­ing in this coun­try.

“We will raise the min­i­mum wage and not raise every­thing else at the same time, so it is in­ef­fec­tive and in­tro­duce what you call au­to­mat­ic cost of liv­ing ad­just­ments for pub­lic sec­tor work­ers,” she de­clared.

Pan­day said they will al­so use prof­its from the en­er­gy sec­tor to keep fu­el prices sta­ble.

“No more pump shocks!”

The PF leader al­so promised to re­move Val­ue Added Tax (VAT) from “es­sen­tial food items and crack­down on price goug­ing.”

“This is about pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies, work­ers and re­build­ing the mid­dle class,” she ex­plained.

Pan­day said she has been in­un­dat­ed with calls from fam­i­lies sim­ply ask­ing for food.

She lament­ed that the same PNM Gov­ern­ment is now ask­ing for a fresh man­date af­ter she claimed that they failed to de­liv­er any­thing sub­stan­tial to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple in the last 10 years.

“This ad­min­is­tra­tion has been in pow­er for 10 years and they are still promis­ing you what they are go­ing to do if elect­ed for an­oth­er 5 years. So, in or­der for them to do any­thing they are telling you that you have to elect them for 15 years.”

Pan­day added, “So this elec­tion, he must an­swer to you on be­half of his par­ty. This is a par­ty that closed down Ca­roni (1975 Ltd) and then they came again and closed down Petrotrin as if it be­longed to them. Did they ask you? Did they con­sult with you? And now they promise to de­liv­er to you every­thing they could not do in 10 years in one month.”

The PF leader al­so crit­i­cized the UNC for hav­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty be­tween 2010 and 2015 and fail­ing to pass mean­ing­ful leg­is­la­tion to im­prove cit­i­zens' qual­i­ty of life.