Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­clared war on her col­league Jack Warn­er. Speak­ing at the par­ty's week­ly Mon­day night meet­ing at San Fran­cique Hin­du School, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was will­ing, ready and able to take on a fight any­time Warn­er ap­proach­es her.

"The war is on. He touched the wrong woman, I go­ing for him. I am strong and I am a woman...I am not afraid him," she shout­ed. Chastis­ing Warn­er for be­ing a Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) agent, Per­sad- Bisses­sar said: "I am not afraid of him, I will fight him to the end. Day-by-day it is ma­te­ri­al­is­ing be­fore our eyes. He is a PNM agent." On Fri­day, Warn­er and Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters vot­ed in favour of the Emer­gency Am­bu­lance Ser­vices Bill, 2009, even though the Gov­ern­ment did not need their votes and the oth­er mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion ab­stained.

On Ju­ly 10, Warn­er al­so joined forces with the Gov­ern­ment to se­cure the pass­ing of the Se­cu­ri­ties Bill 2009. Warn­er's vote was the cru­cial one, since the pas­sage of the bill need­ed a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the move that oust­ed Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan as may­or from the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion was al­so an­oth­er vote for the PNM. "Warn­er and the peo­ple of Ram­jack vot­ed not once, not twice, but three times with the PNM," she said. "They can­not be trust­ed. Do not trust any­thing they say. I say do not trust any­thing they say."

She said Warn­er joined forces with the PNM to push out Ram­bachan from the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion to take away the rights of the con­stituents.

Claim­ing that Warn­er met with Prime Min­ster Patrick Man­ning to hatch a plot to re­move Ram­bachan, Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked: "I am ask­ing now if this plot was true? Did Warn­er meet with Man­ning? I need an­swers." Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would be re­view­ing the law to en­sure that there was not a breach.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she re­ceived in­for­ma­tion that the per­son ap­point­ed as the new may­or was not a mem­ber of a vil­lage coun­cil and as a re­sult will not meet the cri­te­ria ac­cord­ing to the law. Al­so slam­ming Warn­er for the move was MP for Oropouche West Mick­ela Pan­day who de­scribed the move as a "hos­tile takeover." Vow­ing that it was the first and last time she would ever speak about the dis­ap­point­ment she felt, Pan­day said: "They on­ly care about them­selves. They do not care about any­one else." Cou­va South MP Kelvin Ram­nath al­so said he was will­ing to move a res­o­lu­tion to ex­pel Warn­er from the par­ty.