UNC, PNM continue to trade attacks over racial rhetoric

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

While Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ters have fol­lowed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in at­tack­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) af­ter Africa Eman­ci­pa­tion Day is­sues, PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has called on the PM to stop dis­tract­ing the pub­lic with “crazy rant­i­ng” and an­swer mount­ing ques­tions on na­tion­al is­sues, in­clud­ing job­less­ness.

“It would (al­so) be fit­ting for the Prime Min­is­ter to prop­er­ly ad­dress the con­cerns about the UNC’s per­pet­u­al States of Emer­gency re­cent­ly raised by the US Am­bas­sador-des­ig­nate to T&T,” Beck­les said yes­ter­day.

This, fol­low­ing the heck­ling of Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin and Dr Sel­wyn Cud­joe dur­ing last Sat­ur­day’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day launch, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s non-at­ten­dance at sub­se­quent Eman­ci­pa­tion cel­e­bra­tions and the PM blam­ing the PNM for spread­ing racial ha­tred.

Yes­ter­day, UNC min­is­ters kept go­ing at the PNM.

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal, de­nounc­ing the “dis­grace­ful and cru­el” heck­ling of Ben­jamin, said, “Eman­ci­pa­tion Day is meant to unite all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans in cel­e­brat­ing the abo­li­tion of slav­ery. It ho­n­ours the free­dom and dig­ni­ty of our African an­ces­tors. In­stead, the PNM and its sup­port­ers used the oc­ca­sion as a po­lit­i­cal plat­form to spread ha­tred, di­vi­sion and racism, be­tray­ing the true mean­ing of the hol­i­day—an act of des­per­a­tion by the PNM and its al­lies.

“We re­ject any at­tempt to tear down In­do or Afro Trin­bag­o­ni­ans sim­ply be­cause they don’t sup­port the PNM, a par­ty that seem­ing­ly con­tin­ues to pro­mote racial ha­tred and turn cit­i­zens against one an­oth­er for po­lit­i­cal gain...”

Leader of Gov­ern­ment House busi­ness, Bar­ry Padarath, al­so slammed for­mer PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s com­ments on the is­sue.

“Af­ter 75 (sic) years of PNM in T&T, their strong­holds re­main among the most de­pressed, un­der-re­sourced and un­der­de­vel­oped. Who’s to blame for that when PNM has ruled T&T for decades? Now you por­tray your sick, cow­ard­ly self from be­hind a key­board as a sav­iour? What did you and your par­ty do to help or­di­nary peo­ple for ten years?” Padarath asked.

Padarath al­leged that when the pop­u­la­tion “was up in arms about the scorn you heaped on them, what did you say—the rich must get rich­er!”

“PNM strat­e­gy from then to now hasn’t changed, keep sup­port­ers in squalor, pover­ty and ig­no­rance and when all else fails, in­cite racism!” Padarath said.

Ca­roni East MP Dr Rishad Seecher­an said African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day, a cel­e­bra­tion of uni­ty and the abo­li­tion of slav­ery, should nev­er be used as a plat­form for po­lit­i­cal hos­til­i­ty, racial di­vi­sion or per­son­al at­tacks.

“Ac­tions wit­nessed dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions sought to un­der­mine the spir­it of uni­ty and mu­tu­al re­spect that Eman­ci­pa­tion Day rep­re­sents. Such be­hav­iour has no place in our so­ci­ety...” Seecher­an said.

Re­spond­ing to the al­le­ga­tions against her par­ty yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, PNM leader Beck­les ac­cused the PM of dis­tract­ing the pub­lic to avoid the re­al is­sues of Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to man­age the coun­try.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has ques­tions to an­swer. We won’t be dis­tract­ed by or fall for the cal­cu­lat­ed at­tempts at dis­trac­tion per­pe­trat­ed by the Prime Min­is­ter’s crazy rants and pub­lic melt­downs. Cit­i­zens again call up­on the Prime Min­is­ter to pro­vide ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy to them,” Beck­les said.

“For 12 weeks, Gov­ern­ment has failed to hold post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­in­gs, leav­ing many se­ri­ous unan­swered ques­tions con­cern­ing their gov­er­nance, in­clud­ing but not lim­it­ed to: cor­rupt gov­ern­ment pro­cure­ment, job loss­es, the eco­nom­ic con­trac­tion, the SoE, the on­go­ing pass­port short­age, the da­ta cen­tre de­ba­cle, in­creas­ing wa­ter short­ages, in­ad­e­quate garbage col­lec­tion na­tion­wide, and dis­as­trous UNC poli­cies on the en­er­gy sec­tor and for­eign af­fairs.”

She added, “CSO fig­ures in the press con­firmed the grim re­al­i­ty that em­ploy­ment fell by 5,900 jobs in the first quar­ter of 2026, while un­em­ploy­ment rose from 4.3 per cent to 5.4 per cent—yet an­oth­er crit­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant de­vel­op­ment that de­serves to be ad­dressed im­me­di­ate­ly by the Prime Min­is­ter!

“Prime Min­is­ter, we call up­on you to pro­vide ac­count­abil­i­ty and trans­paren­cy to the peo­ple. By virtue of the of­fice you hold, you have many ques­tions to an­swer. Stop with the un­hinged rant­i­ng, head up to St Ann’s (to the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre), face the me­dia and pub­lic like a re­al Prime Min­is­ter, and prop­er­ly ad­dress the is­sues af­fect­ing our na­tion!”

PNM deputy leader San­jiv Bood­hu al­so put the blame for the cur­rent rhetoric square­ly at the feet of the UNC, call­ing on mem­bers to get the PM to stop her at­tacks.

“I’m ap­peal­ing to right-think­ing UNC mem­bers—please, for the sake of T&T, put an end to this. It can­not be the lan­guage com­ing from any T&T Prime Min­is­ter,” Bood­hu said.

“The words used by the Prime Min­is­ter are de­serv­ing of im­me­di­ate re­trac­tion and pub­lic apol­o­gy and an un­der­tak­ing to aban­don race as the means by which she faces po­lit­i­cal crit­i­cism. If UNC mem­bers are un­will­ing to stand for what is right, then right-think­ing cit­i­zens will. In the in­ter­est of peace, I sin­cere­ly hope this mad­ness will be end­ed from with­in UNC. We’re tru­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing some un­nec­es­sar­i­ly dan­ger­ous times.”

He added, “The lat­est ut­ter­ance of in­san­i­ty from the PM is a dis­trac­tion from some­thing. I’m tempt­ed to be out­raged by the gut­ter be­hav­iour, but ‘dis­trac­tion’ is the name of UNC’s game ... For the love of God, please stop talk­ing UNC.”