Morris defends PM’s Independence messages

Akash Sama­roo

Ma­yaro MP Nicholas Mor­ris has de­fend­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­tro­ver­sial In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages, say­ing they demon­strate her “iron-like for­ti­tude” to stand up for peo­ple who have been left be­hind.

Mor­ris, a long­stand­ing mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was jus­ti­fied in is­su­ing a sep­a­rate mes­sage to her par­ty’s sup­port­ers and de­scribed her In­de­pen­dence Day ad­dress­es as a “blue­print of hope” for re­build­ing the coun­try.

His de­fence comes amid crit­i­cism of Per­sad-Bisses­sar for ded­i­cat­ing a spe­cial In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to what she called her “UNC fam­i­ly,” with crit­ics ar­gu­ing that the oc­ca­sion should have been used to pro­mote na­tion­al uni­ty rather than par­ti­san in­ter­ests.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris, who said he has been in­volved with the UNC since the age of 16 and pre­vi­ous­ly served as Youth Arm chair­man and on the par­ty’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive, re­ject­ed that crit­i­cism.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages rep­re­sent a blue­print of hope as they demon­strate her iron-like for­ti­tude to stand for those who have been left be­hind,” Mor­ris said.

He ar­gued that con­stituen­cies such as Ma­yaro had been ne­glect­ed un­der the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion and ac­cused the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment of plac­ing the in­ter­ests of friends, fi­nanciers and the elite ahead of cit­i­zens.

Mor­ris said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mes­sage there­fore re­flect­ed the cir­cum­stances in­her­it­ed by the UNC when it re­turned to gov­ern­ment in April 2025.

“The Prime Min­is­ter was not on­ly ac­cu­rate in her mes­sage, but rather defin­ing in the way in which we can re­build, re­store and re­ju­ve­nate our coun­try in the na­tion­al in­ter­est,” he said.

Mor­ris al­so ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had a du­ty to ac­knowl­edge the UNC base, cred­it­ing its sup­port­ers with help­ing the par­ty re­turn to gov­ern­ment.

“The Prime Min­is­ter is even more jus­ti­fied to send a mes­sage to her po­lit­i­cal base be­cause it was this base which ral­lied to­geth­er as it has al­ways done to save our na­tion from the claws of PNM de­struc­tion,” he said.

He fur­ther con­tend­ed that un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, the UNC had de­vel­oped in­to a par­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the wider coun­try and was now at its strongest point.

Mor­ris al­so took aim at Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day, who has crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mes­sage.

He de­scribed as “com­i­cal, if not hys­ter­i­cal” Pan­day’s ref­er­ences to “the par­ty her fa­ther cre­at­ed,” ar­gu­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er long­stand­ing UNC mem­bers spent their ca­reers build­ing the par­ty while Pan­day had pre­vi­ous­ly crit­i­cised and com­pet­ed elec­toral­ly against it.