PNM: PM hiding from public anger

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

PNM deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu and Op­po­si­tion whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les have ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of “run­ning” from pub­lic crit­i­cism af­ter she was ab­sent from Sat­ur­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions.

How­ev­er, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath said the PNM would not dic­tate Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sched­ule or ac­tiv­i­ties.

The two sides clashed yes­ter­day over Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, where she was sched­uled to de­liv­er re­marks.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, said she had nev­er com­mit­ted to at­tend­ing the event and ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that some peo­ple who were “ea­ger­ly wait­ing to in­sult and curse me were dis­ap­point­ed” by her ab­sence.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin was heck­led ear­li­er dur­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion ob­ser­vances.

Bood­hu said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence was an at­tempt to avoid pub­lic back­lash fol­low­ing the re­ac­tion to Ben­jamin’s ap­pear­ance.

“The Prime Min­is­ter ran. She heard of the re­ac­tion of the peo­ple to Min­is­ter Ben­jamin, and de­cid­ed to avoid the em­bar­rass­ment,” he said.

“But that avoid­ance will not be avail­able to her for­ev­er. She will not al­ways have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to put her min­is­ters in the line of ac­count­ing to the peo­ple while she hides in the back­ground.”

Bood­hu al­so crit­i­cised Ben­jamin’s de­scrip­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “free­dom fight­er”, say­ing it was in­ac­cu­rate.

“Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth than Ben­jamin’s de­scrip­tion of her as a ‘free­dom fight­er’. The truth is, she and her Cab­i­net are cow­ards hid­ing be­hind an op­pres­sive State of Emer­gency and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders be­cause they know they’re the most op­pres­sive gov­ern­ment T&T has ever seen,” he said.

Gon­za­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her min­is­ters were fac­ing the back­lash of cit­i­zens who felt be­trayed.

“The Prime Min­is­ter and her min­is­ters are jus­ti­fi­ably fac­ing cit­i­zens’ back­lash—the frus­tra­tion of a de­ceived peo­ple who’ve been lied to by a par­ty bereft of morals and stan­dards,” he said.

Gon­za­les ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of avoid­ing di­rect en­gage­ment with cit­i­zens.

“The PM knows what she’s done to the peo­ple and doesn’t have what it takes to face them. She prefers more con­trolled en­vi­ron­ments pre­pared by her han­dlers to shield her from the very peo­ple who vot­ed for her,” he said.

“That’s why there are reg­u­la­tions re­strict­ing protests around some pub­lic build­ings—the Gov­ern­ment’s run­ning from the peo­ple.”

Padarath, how­ev­er, re­ject­ed the crit­i­cism, say­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar would not be in­flu­enced by the PNM.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has no in­ten­tion of danc­ing to the tune of the PNM’s racist agen­da be­ing stoked by a few has-beens who can­not get over their loss of pow­er,” he said.

Padarath said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had par­tic­i­pat­ed in sev­er­al Eman­ci­pa­tion events and ac­cused the PNM of try­ing to dic­tate her move­ments.

“The PNM’s at­tempt to cre­ate their own nar­ra­tive of where the Prime Min­is­ter should be, who she should be in the com­pa­ny of and what she should be do­ing isn’t some­thing we have any in­ten­tion of en­ter­tain­ing,” he said.

“The PNM can rant and rave as much as they want, we will not al­low them to dic­tate our pace. The PM re­mains gra­cious and high­ly ap­pre­cia­tive of the con­tri­bu­tion made by the African com­mu­ni­ty to the de­vel­op­ment of our na­tion.”

On the heck­ling of Ben­jamin, Padarath al­leged that those who dis­rupt­ed her re­marks were in­flu­enced by com­ments made by Star Sab­ga and Genevieve Hadeed.

“Some in our so­ci­ety were the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of ghost gangs, sole-se­lect state con­tracts, state-sec­tor cor­rup­tion, per­sons be­ing on sev­er­al state boards, URP and CEPEP cor­rup­tion, land grab­bing, hand­outs in­stead of hand-ups,” he said.

“Our Gov­ern­ment promised we’d do things dif­fer­ent­ly from the PNM’s waste, mis­man­age­ment and cor­rup­tion.”

Padarath said the back­lash was a re­ac­tion to changes be­ing im­ple­ment­ed by the Gov­ern­ment.

“What you’re see­ing now is push­back against that. Gov­ern­ment isn’t fazed by the machi­na­tions of PNM sup­port­ers and their lust for free­ness,” he said.

“We didn’t promise free food. We promised we’d teach you how to feed your­selves and how not to de­pend on any­one to give you a ham­per in ex­change for a vote.”

He ac­cused suc­ces­sive PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions of ne­glect­ing cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties, while claim­ing some sup­port­ers had been en­cour­aged to op­pose at­tempts at change.

Bood­hu, how­ev­er, said the re­marks made by heck­lers, in­clud­ing that peo­ple should not for­get be­ing “promised food to­mor­row while we starve to­day”, re­flect­ed wide­spread pub­lic frus­tra­tion.

He said the state­ment would go down in his­to­ry “as a suc­cinct and pre­cise sen­ti­ment felt by the peo­ple”.

“Peo­ple were sold a dream in 2025 that ‘every­body will win’. Fif­teen months lat­er, the on­ly thing every­body knows is that no­body’s win­ning,” Bood­hu said.

“That mes­sage was de­liv­ered loud and clear to the min­is­ter, Cab­i­net and Prime Min­is­ter.”

He added that cit­i­zens’ voic­es would con­tin­ue to chal­lenge those in of­fice.

“The peo­ple’s voice will al­ways speak the truth to those who tem­porar­i­ly oc­cu­py of­fice. Trinidad and To­ba­go has come too far for the UNC to suc­cess­ful­ly sti­fle hon­est and free speech,” he said.