Panday accuses PM of avoiding scrutiny, using divisive rhetoric

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Po­lit­i­cal Leader Mick­ela Pan­day has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of fail­ing to live up to her elec­tion promis­es and us­ing di­vi­sive rhetoric to de­flect crit­i­cism of her ad­min­is­tra­tion.

In a Face­book post, Pan­day ques­tioned why the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to com­pare its per­for­mance with that of the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion, de­spite cam­paign­ing on a promise to de­liv­er bet­ter gov­er­nance.

“Prime Min­is­ter, your Gov­ern­ment came to of­fice promis­ing change. Yet, in­creas­ing­ly, it is em­brac­ing the very pol­i­tics it asked the coun­try to re­ject,” Pan­day wrote.

She ar­gued that if the PNM had “failed Trinidad and To­ba­go for 9½ years,” it should not now be used as the bench­mark for judg­ing the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion’s per­for­mance.

“Did you not ask the peo­ple to elect you be­cause you promised to do bet­ter? So what changed?” she asked.

Pan­day al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of con­cerns over the State of Emer­gency, Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders and the ex­er­cise of State pow­er.

She said that in­stead of re­spond­ing to what she de­scribed as le­git­i­mate ques­tions, the Prime Min­is­ter had ac­cused crit­ics of at­tempt­ing to “stoke ha­tred be­tween the two ma­jor eth­nic groups” and dis­missed them as “so­cial me­dia trolls,” “de­ranged com­men­ta­tors” and “race grifters.”

Ac­cord­ing to Pan­day, such lan­guage was un­be­com­ing of the coun­try’s high­est po­lit­i­cal of­fice.

“Prime Min­is­ter, this con­stant re­sort to in­flam­ma­to­ry and deroga­to­ry lan­guage di­min­ish­es the Of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter and un­der­mines the na­tion­al uni­ty you say you are com­mit­ted to build­ing,” she wrote.

Pan­day fur­ther al­leged that gov­ern­ments fac­ing dif­fi­cult ques­tions of­ten seek to shift pub­lic at­ten­tion by rais­ing is­sues of race in­stead of ad­dress­ing crit­i­cism di­rect­ly.

“When gov­ern­ments run short of an­swers, they too of­ten reach for the old­est trick in pol­i­tics, race. It is eas­i­er to cre­ate di­vi­sion than an­swer for your record. But what may have worked in the past will not work to­day,” she stat­ed.

She end­ed the post by as­sert­ing that while gov­ern­ments are free to crit­i­cise their op­po­nents and at­tempt to shape pub­lic de­bate, they can­not avoid ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“Gov­ern­ments can at­tack their crit­ics. They can la­bel them. They can try to change the con­ver­sa­tion. But they can­not es­cape the dif­fi­cult ques­tions they must an­swer,” Pan­day wrote.