Richard Lord

Deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Dr Roodal Mooni­lal says ei­ther ca­lyp­son­ian Cro Cro (We­st­on Rawl­ins) or Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds could ap­pear on a Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­form. Mooni­lal said so in re­sponse to ques­tions from re­porters yes­ter­day af­ter Thurs­day's sur­prise ap­pear­ance by ca­lyp­son­ian Sug­ar Aloes (Michael Os­una) at the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's sec­ond an­niver­sary ral­ly in Ch­agua­nas.

Sug­ar Aloes has been one of the lead­ing crit­ics in song against the Gov­ern­ment. Mooni­lal said Aloes "had been as­so­ci­at­ed with the PNM, par­tic­u­lar­ly for­mer prime min­is­ter (Patrick) Man­ning, for sev­er­al years. He has been a very crit­i­cal voice in pol­i­tics, but he is a top-ranked per­former."

Mooni­lal said he was "ex­treme­ly pleased that he got an elec­tri­fy­ing wel­come." He chuck­led when asked if Cro Cro could be next on the PP's plat­form, and said the Gov­ern­ment was work­ing with every­body. In re­sponse to an­oth­er ques­tion, Mooni­lal said: "Noth­ing would sur­prise me in pol­i­tics. This morn­ing peo­ple were call­ing and ask­ing if Cro Cro would be next and I told them maybe Fitzger­ald Hinds may ap­pear on a Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship plat­form. Any­thing can hap­pen in pol­i­tics."

Asked about the cost of the ral­ly, Mooni­lal said it was met by the five par­ties with­in the PP and their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies. He did not give the cost of the event. Par­ty chair­man Jack Warn­er said the most im­por­tant fac­tor was not the cost, but the Prime Min­is­ter's be­ing giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ac­count to the mem­ber­ship and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. An­oth­er deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, al­so said the cost was met by the par­ties.