Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has open­ly de­clared she is "not afraid of any­one" as she ral­lied her troops hours ahead of to­day's no-con­fi­dence mo­tion in Par­lia­ment.Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley filed the mo­tion, ac­cus­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment of tak­ing sev­er­al ac­tions aimed at at­tack­ing and con­spir­ing to un­der­mine key in­sti­tu­tions of the State, in­clud­ing the ju­di­cia­ry, the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, the Par­lia­men­tary Op­po­si­tion and the me­dia.

It is the third such mo­tion filed since the PP took of­fice in 2010. Per­sad Bisses­sar, speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the near two-hour mo­bil­i­sa­tion meet­ing, said she felt "very en­er­gised" and her PP Gov­ern­ment re­mains unit­ed.The PM called in her troops for a mass meet­ing at her Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, home, yes­ter­day.From as ear­ly as noon, min­is­ters, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) par­ty ex­ec­u­tives, lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials and sen­a­tors be­gan ar­riv­ing for the 1 pm meet­ing.

Min­is­ter of the En­vi­ron­ment and Wa­ter Re­sources Gan­ga Singh told re­porters the meet­ing was called to plan for the Gov­ern­ment's May 24 third an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions, which are card­ed for Mid Cen­tre Mall, Ch­agua­nas.How­ev­er, the meet­ing start­ed at 2 pm. Many min­is­ters, in­clud­ing Plan­ning Min­is­ter Dr Bhoen­dra­datt Tewarie, were seen milling around out­side be­fore the start of the meet­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ad­dress­ing ac­tivists and cab­i­net mem­bers on a PA sys­tem that was au­di­ble along Es­tate Road, said she was "overs" all the ole talk about her and her Gov­ern­ment.

She told sup­port­ers: "The day they took a pic­ture of my very beau­ti­ful boots and put it on the front page, I overs them long time. Let them talk. I am not afraid of them any­more. They want to take my job and I am not afraid of them. To­mor­row (to­day) if you want to come out­side the Par­lia­ment you can come. But when we fin­ish with them, we will re­al­ly mash them up."How­ev­er, she urged her sup­port­ers to mo­bilise for the PP's an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions.

She al­so ad­vised them: "It is not for us to kick up and beat up each oth­er. It is not for us to climb over each oth­er. It is about stay­ing to­geth­er, stay­ing unit­ed, cel­e­brat­ing and giv­ing thanks for so much we have al­ready achieved."She said she urged them to "con­tin­ue to work to­geth­er to achieve far more."

Bush fire does not stop meet­ing

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar was fiery in her speech, fire of­fi­cers were bat­tling a bush fire just op­po­site her res­i­dence that blan­ket­ed the area with bil­low­ing white smoke and clouds of black ash.Fire of­fi­cials said the bush fire en­com­passed about ten acres of un­cul­ti­vat­ed land in Phillip­ine. The fire be­gan at the bot­tom of the hill op­po­site the PM's res­i­dence and, aid­ed by the wind, ad­vanced up­wards to­wards the road. Fire of­fi­cers from Mon Re­pos Fire Sta­tion took about 45 min­utes to con­tain the fire.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the fire caused a lot of "wa­tery eyes" dur­ing the meet­ing.The SS Erin Road was con­vert­ed to one-lane traf­fic and mo­torists were di­vert­ed on­to Es­tate Road be­cause of the thick smoke.

PM dis­miss­es de­trac­tors

The PM dis­missed de­trac­tors of her Gov­ern­ment's per­for­mance, in­clud­ing po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts Dr Win­ford James and Regi­nald Du­mas, both of whom, in a Sun­day Guardian ar­ti­cle yes­ter­day, gave the Gov­ern­ment a poor grade for its per­for­mance as it en­ters its third year."If you talk to peo­ple who are here and else­where, it is very clear that we have more than a pass grade in terms of achieve­ment, in terms of projects com­plet­ed and projects on the way," she de­clared.

Jack Warn­er's de­ci­sion to file nom­i­na­tion for the Ch­agua­nas West seat

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said thus far four peo­ple have filed nom­i­na­tions to con­test the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy.How­ev­er, she did not dis­close the names of the po­ten­tial can­di­dates.Jack Warn­er, for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP and for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, told re­porters that he in­tends to file his nom­i­na­tion for the seat on Thurs­day.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Warn­er is free to file nom­i­na­tions just as any oth­er mem­ber of the UNC.

"As far as I am aware Mr Warn­er re­mains a mem­ber of the UNC. As any oth­er mem­ber of the par­ty, he is en­ti­tled to file a nom­i­na­tion. The par­ty then has a process that it goes through for screen­ing and se­lec­tion of the spe­cif­ic can­di­date for that con­stituen­cy," she said.

Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions

Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured that the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion will be held with­in its con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due time­frame.The elec­tion, she said, is due on or be­fore Oc­to­ber.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC has so far re­ceived more than 200 nom­i­na­tions."We will be­gin screen­ing short­ly. The par­ty will meet to de­ter­mine the date for screen­ing," she said.