Big UNC crowd for Budget presentation

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

There were no plac­ards of protest, no an­gry chants and no demon­stra­tors de­mand­ing an­swers from the Gov­ern­ment.

In­stead, there were cheers, drums, danc­ing and em­braces out­side the Red House yes­ter­day, as more than 200 sup­port­ers of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion gath­ered ahead of the pre­sen­ta­tion of the 2027 na­tion­al bud­get.

Dressed in par­ty T-shirts, union T-shirts or sim­ply the colour yel­low, the crowd cre­at­ed an at­mos­phere al­most re­sem­bling a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) town hall meet­ing rather than the pre­sen­ta­tion of the coun­try’s an­nu­al fi­nan­cial pack­age.

Sev­er­al plac­ards car­ried mes­sages of sup­port, in­clud­ing: “Bet­ter days are here,” “The Bor­ough of Barataria is here,” “Thank you PM for fire trucks” and “A lap­top for every child.”

Among those present were dozens of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers, in­clud­ing its pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cil Ro­get, as well as sev­er­al UNC may­ors and al­der­men.

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment al­so joined in the fes­tiv­i­ties, ex­chang­ing hugs and greet­ings with sup­port­ers as they made their way in­to the Par­lia­ment build­ing.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen was among the most an­i­mat­ed, grab­bing a chac-chac and join­ing sup­port­ers in chants prais­ing the Prime Min­is­ter as the “moth­er” of the na­tion.

But it was the Prime Min­is­ter’s ar­rival that drew the most ex­cite­ment from the crowd yes­ter­day.

Her ar­rival sparked a wave of ex­cite­ment among sup­port­ers, as many rushed for­ward to touch her hand and shout de­c­la­ra­tions of love and sup­port.

Rather than be­ing dri­ven di­rect­ly in­to the Par­lia­ment com­pound, as is cus­tom­ary, the Prime Min­is­ter stopped in the street to greet the crowd, shak­ing hands and ac­knowl­edg­ing sup­port­ers be­fore pro­ceed­ing in­side.

No­tably ab­sent from the day’s ac­tiv­i­ties were an­ti-gov­ern­ment pro­test­ers.

Guardian Me­dia did not ob­serve any or­gan­ised demon­stra­tion out­side Par­lia­ment dur­ing the ac­tiv­i­ties.

How­ev­er, there were a few boos from the crowd when Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs Stu­art Young and Bri­an Man­ning ar­rived.

There was one lone sup­port­er of Young out­side Par­lia­ment.