Beckles disappointed at PM’s support of Watts’ ‘attack’ on women

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says she is not sur­prised, but is “ex­cep­tion­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed” by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to con­tro­ver­sial re­marks made by Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Phillip Watts about women in Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia con­fer­ence at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Beck­les crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter for what she de­scribed as en­dors­ing Watts’ com­ments about the ap­pear­ance and moral val­ues of fe­male par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, as well as in­sin­u­a­tions re­gard­ing the sex­u­al con­duct of fe­male Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

She ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of fail­ing to con­demn the re­marks and in­stead es­ca­lat­ing the con­tro­ver­sy.

“When you lis­ten to the Prime Min­is­ter, to go down to that lev­el, ab­solute­ly, ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous,” Beck­les said.

“I’m not go­ing to re­peat what she said, but I’m just go­ing to say to her, I am not sur­prised, but I’m ex­cep­tion­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed in her com­ments. I’m shocked that the Prime Min­is­ter will ac­tu­al­ly as­so­ciate her­self with those com­ments, not to com­ment and to dou­ble down and make it ab­solute­ly worse.”

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter should have known bet­ter, par­tic­u­lar­ly at a time when women oc­cu­py the coun­try’s three high­est of­fices.

“The Prime Min­is­ter needs to re­mem­ber there is a woman sit­ting as Pres­i­dent of this coun­try. There is a woman sit­ting as Prime Min­is­ter of this coun­try. And there is a woman sit­ting as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion,” she said.

Turn­ing her at­ten­tion to Watts, Beck­les con­demned his con­duct and ques­tioned his judge­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en his role as Min­is­ter of Youth Af­fairs.

“I con­demn his be­hav­iour, and it is very un­for­tu­nate as a Min­is­ter of Youth that he would use his time in Par­lia­ment to go down in­to the gut­ter,” she said.

“But to come and be putting in my name and my oth­er fe­male col­leagues, talk­ing about who’s sleep­ing with who, that is ab­solute­ly ridicu­lous, and that is not what Par­lia­ment should be used for.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ques­tioned the mes­sage be­ing sent to young women across Trinidad and To­ba­go, ar­gu­ing that po­lit­i­cal lead­ers have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to mod­el re­spect and in­tegri­ty.

“The young girls are lis­ten­ing,” she said.

“What is the Prime Min­is­ter, if she was asked to ad­dress the young women of Trinidad and To­ba­go, hav­ing said what she said, what is she go­ing to tell them? What is the ex­am­ple that she is set­ting?”

Beck­les urged young women not to al­low the con­duct of politi­cians to dis­cour­age them from pur­su­ing lead­er­ship roles and en­cour­aged them to up­hold strong moral val­ues and in­tegri­ty.

“Moral val­ues are very im­por­tant, in­tegri­ty is very im­por­tant. If you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to be a coun­cil­lor, to be a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, to be the pres­i­dent, to be the prime min­is­ter, al­ways re­mem­ber that the younger ones are look­ing at you,” she said.

“You should strive to be a men­tor, and when you speak, you should speak in a way that young men and women can look up to you.”

She al­so en­cour­aged young peo­ple to re­ject the neg­a­tiv­i­ty some­times dis­played in Par­lia­ment and avoid en­gag­ing in per­son­al at­tacks.

“No mat­ter what peo­ple say to you, no mat­ter the neg­a­tiv­i­ty that you hear in Par­lia­ment, you have a choice. We all have choic­es, and the choice that you should make is not to go down to a lev­el where you dis­cred­it peo­ple, where you dis­cred­it women, where you dis­cred­it boys. Don’t do it, be­cause it does not help,” Beck­les said.