PM says she’s ready for ‘round two’ of boos on Independence Day

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is look­ing for­ward to what she de­scribed as “round two” of at­tempts to boo her on In­de­pen­dence Day, as po­lit­i­cal ten­sions con­tin­ue to sim­mer fol­low­ing her ab­sence from the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s (ES­CTT) flag­ship Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage cel­e­bra­tions over the week­end.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day about whether she in­tends to at­tend this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade in light of the re­cent con­tro­ver­sy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not con­firm this. In­stead, the Prime Min­is­ter launched a fresh at­tack on the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ac­cus­ing it of us­ing na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions to pro­mote racial di­vi­sion.

“The PNM, the lo­cal drug mafia and their sup­port­ers’ grand po­lit­i­cal strat­e­gy to ‘boo Kam­la the stink­ing c*****e’ sad­ly for them flopped at Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions when I didn’t at­tend,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

She added, “PNM MPs and sup­port­ers got up ear­ly, heart and mind full of ha­tred and racism, got dressed and went down to Port-of-Spain in the hot sun to cuss Kam­la the stink­ing c****e and then their plan buss. That is the ex­am­ple that the PNM MPs and sup­port­ers set for the younger gen­er­a­tions, to den­i­grate and des­e­crate Eman­ci­pa­tion Day.”

The Prime Min­is­ter fur­ther ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of plan­ning to use the event to tar­get her.

“I ea­ger­ly look for­ward to round two of ‘boo Kam­la the stink­ing c****e’ on In­de­pen­dence Day. I am in­formed that Star cheese and bot­tled wa­ter may be avail­able to all at­ten­dees cour­tesy the PNM.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lat­est re­marks come days af­ter a po­lit­i­cal fall­out erupt­ed over her de­ci­sion to skip the ES­CTT’s Lidj Ya­su Omowale Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage event on Sat­ur­day, de­spite be­ing ad­ver­tised as the fea­ture speak­er, and the boo­ing of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin dur­ing Sat­ur­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day events.

In­stead, the Prime Min­is­ter spent the day with her fam­i­ly, say­ing she had al­ready par­tic­i­pat­ed in two Eman­ci­pa­tion events on Thurs­day in Port-of-Spain and San Fer­nan­do.

Her ab­sence prompt­ed sharp crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, who de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion not to at­tend the ES­CTT’s flag­ship event as dis­re­spect­ful.

She main­tained that Eman­ci­pa­tion Day be­longs to all Trinidad and To­ba­go and should not be viewed through a par­ti­san lens.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­ject­ed those crit­i­cisms, ac­cus­ing the PNM of weapon­is­ing Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions and tar­get­ing Afro-Trinida­di­ans who sup­port the UNC.