Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan is stand­ing be­hind act­ing Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, de­spite the back­lash fol­low­ing his sala­cious com­ments about Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate on Oc­to­ber 10.

Dur­ing a “hot mic” in­ci­dent, Young was heard im­ply­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar was leav­ing the cham­ber to “za­m­mie,” a word which is used in ref­er­ence to les­bian acts. He fur­ther sug­gest­ed that Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram would “run girls” for UNC MPs in the back­room of the Red House.

Last Thurs­day, House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George cas­ti­gat­ed him for bring­ing the House in­to odi­um for his “deroga­to­ry, ho­mo­pho­bic and misog­y­nis­tic” com­ments and urged him to apol­o­gise to the House. He sub­se­quent­ly did this and avoid­ed be­ing hauled be­fore the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee.

On Sun­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley ap­point­ed Young to act in his ab­sence for a third con­sec­u­tive time, as he left for the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) 2024 in Samoa. This brought some neg­a­tive back­lash from some sec­tors of the so­ci­ety.

Speak­ing ahead of yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate sit­ting at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, Sinanan said he did not share the view it was a bad de­ci­sion to ap­point Young at this time giv­en the close­ness of the in­ci­dent. He said he had faith in Young and his ca­pa­bil­i­ty to be the act­ing head of Gov­ern­ment.

“I know for a fact that Stu­art Young is quite ca­pa­ble of not on­ly act­ing as prime min­is­ter but al­so lead­ing this coun­try,” Sinanan said.

Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Richie Sookhai shared a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment, say­ing he trusts his leader (Row­ley) and his de­ci­sions.

An­oth­er Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor, Has­sel Bac­chus, re­fused to com­ment on the is­sue.

But Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dami­an Ly­der said he was dis­ap­point­ed Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde did not send Young to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. He said he knew of peo­ple who were sent to the com­mit­tee for less of­fen­sive com­ments.

“But to think that you have es­caped the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee with a mere apol­o­gy for such un­par­lia­men­tary lan­guage, lan­guage that shouldn’t even be used with­in a home with chil­dren and the fact that this has cir­cu­lat­ed around the coun­try where man, woman and granny and child have heard the lan­guage, heard what was said and to whom it was said about...it was so dis­re­spect­ful. I’m shocked, I’m dis­ap­point­ed,” he said ahead of the Sen­ate sit­ting.

Ly­der said PM Row­ley made a very poor de­ci­sion by ap­point­ing Young to act in his ab­sence so soon af­ter the con­tro­ver­sy. How­ev­er, he said this was in­dica­tive of the cur­rent in­ter­nal prob­lems in the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

“There are quite a few peo­ple, not just in the UNC or the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion but with­in the PNM, that is dis­gust­ed by that be­hav­iour and very dis­ap­point­ed that he’s once again act­ing as Prime Min­is­ter,” Ly­der said.

He al­so ques­tioned the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Row­ley and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who had act­ed in the po­si­tion dur­ing Row­ley’s ab­sence for the last nine years and up to ear­li­er this year. He ques­tioned why Young was se­lect­ed the last three times in­stead of Im­bert.

An­oth­er Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor, David Nakhid, said Row­ley’s de­ci­sion to se­lect Young to act showed he had no em­pa­thy and care for women in this coun­try.

“He has no care for how the cit­i­zens feel. I think it’s well known that most of the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal stripes, they be­lieve that what he said was rep­re­hen­si­ble and in­ap­pro­pri­ate for any­body to hold pub­lic of­fice, and now he’s hold­ing the high­est of­fice of the land,” Nakhid said.

The Pres­i­dent holds the high­est of­fice in T&T, fol­lowed by the Prime Min­is­ter.

Nakhid claimed Row­ley has shown he does not care about cit­i­zens for al­most 10 years.