PNM Women’s League condemns PM’s ‘cuff you down’ remark in Parliament

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Women’s League has con­demned a com­ment made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing Fri­day’s sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, de­scrib­ing her words as “high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate” and “whol­ly un­be­com­ing” of the coun­try’s leader.

The state­ment from the League fol­lowed a brief but tense ex­change be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Colm Im­bert. Af­ter Im­bert re­port­ed­ly point­ed in her di­rec­tion dur­ing de­bate, the Prime Min­is­ter fired back: “Don’t point at me, be­cause I’ll cuff you down.”

The Women’s League said it was “deeply con­cerned” by the re­mark, in­sist­ing that the Par­lia­ment—the na­tion’s high­est fo­rum for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic en­gage­ment—should nev­er be a place where “vi­o­lent ex­pres­sions, whether lit­er­al or im­plied, are nor­malised, en­cour­aged, or triv­i­alised.”

“At a time when our so­ci­ety is bat­tling in­creased vi­o­lence, in­dis­ci­pline, and dis­re­spect, lead­ers must set a high­er stan­dard of con­duct,” the League said. “Words mat­ter, es­pe­cial­ly the words of the Prime Min­is­ter.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion ar­gued that any sug­ges­tion of a phys­i­cal, re­tal­ia­to­ry act—even out of frus­tra­tion—un­der­cuts ef­forts to pro­mote re­spect, non-vi­o­lence, and con­flict res­o­lu­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly among the coun­try’s youth.

Pos­ing di­rect ques­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter, the Women’s League asked how she ex­pects young peo­ple to re­ject vi­o­lence “when your own lan­guage in Par­lia­ment pro­motes the op­po­site,” and how cit­i­zens can be urged to up­hold ci­vil­i­ty “when your own con­duct falls short of the dig­ni­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of your of­fice.”

The League said it “ex­pects far bet­ter” from the na­tion’s leader, stress­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves a Prime Min­is­ter who demon­strates re­straint, dis­ci­pline, and ma­tu­ri­ty.

“We strong­ly urge the Prime Min­is­ter to re­flect on the grav­i­ty of her words and the ex­am­ple they set for the thou­sands who look to the na­tion’s lead­er­ship for guid­ance,” the state­ment con­clud­ed. “The Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter de­mands be­hav­iour that el­e­vates our democ­ra­cy, not lan­guage that un­der­mines it.”