Govt ministers come out in support of PM

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have com­mend­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress at Tues­day’s launch of Cari­com’s 50th con­fer­ence, with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath rub­bish­ing the Op­po­si­tion’s crit­i­cisms of her ad­dress.

In her open­ing re­marks, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered a force­ful de­fence of her un­wa­ver­ing sup­port for Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, while sharply re­buk­ing mem­bers of the re­gion­al bloc for what she de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence across the re­gion and their fail­ure to con­front Venezuela in de­fence of Guyana.

“Who vex loss,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Health Rishad Seecher­an was the first to com­mend the Prime Min­is­ter soon af­ter she spoke, and af­ter Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les crit­i­cised her speech.

Seecher­an said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ap­proach strength­ens T&T’s po­si­tion in the re­gion and re­flects the ded­i­ca­tion and vi­sion re­quired to pro­tect and ad­vance its in­ter­ests.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­firmed the coun­try’s sov­er­eign right to de­ter­mine its own path, “High­light­ing the bal­ance be­tween na­tion­al in­de­pen­dence and re­gion­al co­op­er­a­tion, en­sur­ing that the in­ter­ests of T&T cit­i­zens re­main para­mount while en­gag­ing con­struc­tive­ly with Cari­com part­ners.”

But yes­ter­day, Padarath hit back at the Op­po­si­tion for chid­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments, which Beck­les de­scribed as “reck­less”. Padarath said, “Wasn’t prin­ci­pled cri­tique, but po­lit­i­cal the­atre un­teth­ered from fact. The Op­po­si­tion can now be best de­scribed as spine­less cow­ards who found them­selves on the wrong side of his­to­ry.”

“Truth does not be­come ‘re­volt­ing’ be­cause it’s un­com­fort­able. Lead­er­ship does not be­come ‘bizarre’ be­cause it chal­lenges com­pla­cen­cy. The Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress was clear, de­lib­er­ate and root­ed in the sov­er­eign right of T&T to de­ter­mine its for­eign and se­cu­ri­ty pol­i­cy in the best in­ter­est of its peo­ple. That’s not reck­less­ness, that’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” Padarath said, slam­ming Beck­les’s lead­er­ship tenure and pub­lic ser­vice.

Praise for the Prime Min­is­ter al­so came from the Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, Health Min­is­ter Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, Land and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein, as well as the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Youth Arm.

How­ev­er, for­mer min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath was crit­i­cal. He said, “Those in­clud­ing gov­ern­ment min­is­ters cheer­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s reck­less state­ment to Cari­com lead­ers don’t com­pre­hend the grav­i­ty of this sit­u­a­tion for thou­sands of T&T em­ploy­ees whose jobs de­pend on lo­cal goods and ser­vices be­ing sold to Cari­com, T&T stu­dents study­ing in Cari­com states and na­tion­als work­ing in the re­gion.”

He added, “In her con­tin­ued, em­bar­rass­ing haste to fawn at the feet of our ‘new mas­ters’ in the north, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­liv­ered what can on­ly be de­scribed as the most reck­less tirade by any Cari­com leader in mod­ern his­to­ry, sin­gle-hand­ed­ly caus­ing ir­repara­ble dam­age to the once trea­sured re­la­tion­ship with T&T’s sec­ond largest trad­ing part­ner.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said he’d give the Prime Min­is­ter’s ad­dress a sev­en out of ten rat­ing.

“Re­mov­ing marks for her lan­guage, she could have been a lit­tle more diplo­mat­ic. She has al­ways had an is­sue with her tone and lan­guage, but she was frank, di­rect and made the points she want­ed to.”

“She was con­sis­tent with what she’s been say­ing since she be­came PM about Cari­com be­ing an ‘un­re­li­able part­ner’, Cari­com ‘didn’t sup­port’ T&T and her con­cerns about writ­ing Cari­com on the Brent Thomas mat­ter. She’s made it clear as she didn’t go to play nice, so she’s await­ing Cari­com’s re­ac­tions. I’m not sure it wasn’t the place to air those con­cerns. If you’ve got to make de­ci­sions for Cari­com, it doesn’t make sense to hug up peo­ple, then grouse about them or say it else­where.”

Hon­orary se­nior fel­low, UWI’s In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions De­part­ment, Prof An­tho­ny Gon­za­les said, “Frankly, it wasn’t a good speech. I didn’t see the pur­pose of some is­sues. She ap­peared to be alien­at­ing Cari­com from T&T for no good rea­son. Her ad­dress didn’t give rec­om­mend­ed trans­for­ma­tion so­lu­tions if, as she’s said, Cari­com needs trans­form­ing.”