By Shas­tri Boodan

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Cou­va South can­di­date Bar­ry Padarath has de­scribed the reap­pear­ance of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley on Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) plat­forms as a “sign of des­per­a­tion.”

Dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Ex­change De­vel­op­ment and the Cou­va Mar­ket yes­ter­day, Padarath claimed that the PNM is scram­bling as the gen­er­al elec­tion draws near.

“Right now, it’s a mad scram­ble in the PNM be­cause their po­lit­i­cal backs are against the wall,” he said.

“It’s a last-ditch ef­fort, in my re­spect­ful view, that the for­mer PM is now hit­ting the po­lit­i­cal stage, know­ing he has to hold the hand of the cur­rent PM in this po­lit­i­cal bat­tle.”

He was al­so crit­i­cal of Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, claim­ing the pop­u­la­tion recog­nis­es his “lack of ex­pe­ri­ence, lack of com­pe­tence, and in­abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress na­tion­al is­sues.”

Padarath ar­gued that Row­ley’s re­turn high­lights in­ter­nal chal­lenges with­in the rul­ing par­ty.

“With two weeks to go be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tion, for­mer PM Row­ley has found it nec­es­sary to re-en­ter the po­lit­i­cal space. He left not on­ly the PNM, but the en­tire coun­try, in a myr­i­ad of dif­fi­cul­ties,” he said.

The Cou­va South can­di­date al­so claimed that the na­tion has en­dured a decade of eco­nom­ic hard­ship and so­cial de­cline un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Peo­ple have felt the blows in their pock­ets and in their homes,” he said.

Padarath al­so crit­i­cised At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, ac­cus­ing her of en­gag­ing in “gut­ter pol­i­tics” and said the PNM con­tin­ues to re­ly on per­son­al at­tacks rather than pre­sent­ing so­lu­tions.

“The coun­try is tired of that. That kind of nasty, gut­ter pol­i­tics has no place in a civilised so­ci­ety. Peo­ple want to know how their lives will be im­proved,” he said.

“For ten years, the PNM has done noth­ing. Now, on the cusp of an elec­tion, they promise the sun, the moon, and the stars.”

At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in Rio Claro on Sat­ur­day night, UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John echoed Padarath’s sen­ti­ments. She mocked the for­mer prime min­is­ter’s re­turn to the cam­paign trail.

“Now in full pan­ic mode, Young close his new chap­ter. He just open the new chap­ter, you know. He closed it and he bring back old chap­ter—Row­ley last night. That is a spec­tac­u­lar thing,” John said.

“In the his­to­ry of pol­i­tics, we have nev­er seen any­thing like that. The out­go­ing prime min­is­ter hand­ed over the ba­ton to his in­com­ing, and he has to come back to bail out wa­ter from the man boat, you un­der­stand.”

She al­so took aim at the prime min­is­ter: “And he out there talk­ing fool­ish­ness about UNC and who at­tend­ed UNC meet­ings. Stu­art Young, mind your damn busi­ness.”