Anita Haynes: ‘We warned you’

For­mer UNC MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne has is­sued a strong con­dem­na­tion of the Gov­ern­ment and her for­mer par­ty, warn­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go is be­ing gov­erned by “ab­sent lead­er­ship” sup­port­ed by “syco­phan­tic un­der­lings” and urg­ing cit­i­zens not to be afraid to chal­lenge au­thor­i­ty when they be­lieve some­thing is wrong.

In a pub­lic state­ment on so­cial me­dia on Sun­day night, Haynes-Al­leyne, who has not spo­ken pub­licly on po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments since the April 28, 2025, Gen­er­al Elec­tion, ar­gued that the con­cerns she and oth­ers raised dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’s in­ter­nal elec­tions two years ago are now be­com­ing ap­par­ent on a na­tion­al scale.

“We are see­ing the same ab­sent lead­er­ship, propped up by syco­phan­tic un­der­lings whose on­ly job is to en­thu­si­as­ti­cal­ly nod yes, pass­ing as gov­er­nance,” she said.

Haynes-Al­leyne added that the coun­try now need­ed more peo­ple will­ing to ques­tion de­ci­sions and stand up for what they be­lieved was in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.

“There­fore, now more than ever we need peo­ple who are will­ing to dis­sent in de­fence of our na­tion,” she said. “Our coun­try needs more peo­ple will­ing to ask ques­tions, chal­lenge as­sump­tions, and speak hon­est­ly when some­thing is wrong.”

The for­mer sen­a­tor ar­gued that many of the in­ter­nal is­sues she wit­nessed with­in the UNC are now be­ing repli­cat­ed in gov­ern­ment.

“We had is­sued a warn­ing that how you run your par­ty will be how you would run the coun­try,” she said.

“Re­mark­ably, we are see­ing the same bul­ly­ing tac­tics em­ployed by the Par­ty hi­er­ar­chy to de­mand un­ques­tion­ing com­pli­ance to the lead­er­ship be­ing used against gov­ern­ment em­ploy­ees now.”

“There is no line they are un­will­ing to cross.”

Haynes-Al­leyne stopped short of iden­ti­fy­ing spe­cif­ic in­ci­dents but said an in­creas­ing num­ber of cit­i­zens were be­com­ing con­cerned about the di­rec­tion of the coun­try.

“It is ev­i­dent that the con­cerns once raised by a few are be­ing voiced by many,” she said. “More cit­i­zens are ques­tion­ing what they see. More peo­ple are speak­ing open­ly about is­sues and voic­ing their dis­con­tent with the di­rec­tion of our na­tion.”

She called for a po­lit­i­cal cul­ture that em­braces scruti­ny rather than pun­ish­es it.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go needs lead­er­ship that wel­comes scruti­ny, val­ues in­de­pen­dent thought, and un­der­stands that dis­agree­ment is not dis­loy­al­ty,” she said.

“Democ­ra­cy is strength­ened by de­bate, not weak­ened by it.”

Haynes-Al­leyne de­clared, “If that makes us dis­si­dents, then per­haps what Trinidad and To­ba­go needs to­day is more prin­ci­pled dis­sent.”

The re­la­tion­ship be­tween the for­mer MP and the UNC ap­peared to sour in 2024 fol­low­ing in­ter­nal dis­putes sur­round­ing the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions and the treat­ment of mem­bers who chal­lenged the lead­er­ship. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, crit­ics of the par­ty hi­er­ar­chy were fre­quent­ly la­belled “dis­si­dents”, a term that be­came a re­cur­ring fea­ture of the in­ter­nal con­test.

Haynes-Al­leyne lat­er emerged as a promi­nent crit­ic of the UNC lead­er­ship and, in the lead-up to the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, ap­peared as a guest speak­er at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s fi­nal po­lit­i­cal ral­ly in Tu­na­puna.

Re­flect­ing on the events that led to her de­par­ture, Haynes-Al­leyne said many peo­ple had en­cour­aged her to re­ject the dis­si­dent la­bel be­cause of con­cerns about the po­lit­i­cal con­se­quences.

“Many peo­ple reached out to me. Some feared for my po­lit­i­cal fu­ture. Oth­ers were con­cerned about the hos­til­i­ty di­rect­ed at those who dared to chal­lenge the sta­tus quo. Many ad­vised me to re­ject the la­bel of dis­si­dent al­to­geth­er,” she said.

“I nev­er did.”

She said her de­ci­sion stemmed from a be­lief that the re­al is­sue was not the la­bel it­self but the prin­ci­ples in­volved.

“Be­cause I knew what I was dis­sent­ing to and what mat­ters is not the la­bel, but what one is will­ing to stand for,” she said.

Haynes-Al­leyne said she en­tered pol­i­tics be­liev­ing it could be a force for pos­i­tive change and a space where new ideas and hon­est de­bate could flour­ish. How­ev­er, she be­came in­creas­ing­ly dis­il­lu­sioned by what she de­scribed as a cul­ture that dis­cour­aged in­de­pen­dent thought.

“Too of­ten, the ad­vice was the same: stay qui­et, fall in line, sur­vive to­day, and per­haps change things to­mor­row,” she said.

“But to­mor­row nev­er comes when si­lence be­comes the price of par­tic­i­pa­tion.”