Yvonne Webb

PNM can­di­date for Fyz­abad Joel Primus has called for an end to the Per­cy Vil­lafana sign of re­sis­tance, say­ing it would lead to ju­ve­nile delin­quen­cy.

Mak­ing his de­but on a plat­form, which in­clud­ed Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, on Wednes­day night, Primus said the sym­bol, which was be­ing used by the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship in its cam­paign against the PNM was set­ting a poor ex­am­ple for chil­dren. He said: "One won­ders what the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA) and TUT­TA would have to say on such mat­ters. "I shud­der to think that stu­dents may soon re­sort to dis­play­ing this ges­ture in re­sponse to their teach­ers, chil­dren to their par­ents and oth­ers, even to the po­lice."

De­scrib­ing it as a "bar­bar­ic re­sis­tance ges­ture," he called in­stead for cit­i­zens to shake each oth­er's hands. He said: "I wish to re­mind the na­tion it was our found­ing fa­ther Dr Er­ic Williams and Rudrad­nath Capildeo who, in work­ing to­wards the in­de­pen­dence of Trinidad and To­ba­go by the stroke of a pen and hand­shake, gave rise to a blood­less and civ­il in­de­pen­dent state of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He al­so trained his guns on leader of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for her pub­lic tear­ing of the PNM's man­i­festo. She said: "Such a dis­play speaks to the poor ethics and re­spect for oth­ers and their view­points on the oth­er side. "Clear­ly, if she has to tear up oth­er peo­ple's prop­er­ty, that smacks of a ten­den­cy to go out of con­trol."