Yvonne Ba­boolal

Even as he pledged un­wa­ver­ing sup­port to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for­mer Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er yes­ter­day sin­gled out a mem­ber of her ad­min­is­tra­tion for harsh crit­i­cism.

Speak­ing at the launch of his cam­paign to re­gain the Ch­agua­nas West seat at the Ju­bilee Recre­ation Ground in Fe­lic­i­ty, Warn­er, with­out call­ing him by name, spoke about "our present su­per min­is­ter, the Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture" and called one of his sup­port­ers, Alvin Lutch­man, a coun­cil­lor with the Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, to the podi­um.

Lutch­man told the crowd he was threat­ened with dis­missal by the "su­per min­is­ter." He al­so said a min­is­ter asked him if he at­tend­ed a meet­ing at Pierre Road, Fe­lic­i­ty, and told him he was now po­lit­i­cal­ly dead.

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Warn­er told the crowd: "This is the same min­is­ter who now boasts that he is the biggest su­per min­is­ter this coun­try has ever seen; that he now con­trols the des­tiny of some 35,000 em­ploy­ees and, on the av­er­age of six per­sons per em­ploy­ee, he now boasts that he sin­gle-hand­ed­ly con­trols the des­tiny of over 200,000 lives, all in­fra­struc­tur­al con­tracts, all roads, all bridges all box drains."

"This is the very same min­is­ter who now boasts that he's the Prime Min­is­ter's lead­ing speech writer and who, even up to to­day, has nev­er apol­o­gised for in­clud­ing the con­cept of 'rogue me­dia' in the PM's last speech at Ca­paro," he added.The for­mer min­is­ter al­so warned his sup­port­ers to ex­pect "all man­ner of tricks to be played out against me."Ex­pect neg­a­tive phone calls pur­port­ing to be from Jack Warn­er and his friends," he said.

"Those of you who sup­port me, ex­pect the threat of ter­mi­na­tion let­ters over your heads, es­pe­cial­ly if you are em­ployed in the URP."Ex­pect our ra­dio talk show hosts who were my friends yes­ter­day to be­come my en­e­mies to­day for a mere 30 pieces of sil­ver. Ex­pect all man­ner of colum­nists with an­ti-Jack Warn­er ad­vice. Ex­pect an­ti-Jack Warn­er crit­i­cisms of all kinds from both le­gal lu­mi­nar­ies and blog­gers."

Warn­er said he has con­tract­ed Eng­lish lawyers to re­view the Con­ca­caf re­port that re­port­ed­ly led to his demise and peo­ple will "hold their heads and bawl" when they hear what the lawyers have to say.He told the crowd of some 1,000 peo­ple: "Let not your hearts be trou­bled. Yes­ter­day I met with Eng­lish lawyers who re­viewed the Con­ca­caf re­port."When you are told (the out­come of the re­view) by these Eng­lish lawyers, and a few lo­cals, you will hold your head and bawl.

You have noth­ing to wor­ry about," he said.Warn­er said he has been pres­i­dent of Con­ca­caf for 20 years and he nev­er signed a cheque or agree­ment or opened a bank ac­count in the US."Speak­ing above a ban­ner that read, "The Black king from Africa has ar­rived," Warn­er sent mixed sig­nals about his po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions.He pledged his loy­al­ty to the UNC and urged his con­stituents to re­ject the PNM but had some ad­vice for Per­sad-Bisses­sar about MPs who were on­ly con­cerned about them­selves.

He said he still sees the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship as the best op­tion for T&T be­cause the PNM un­der Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is out of sync with the peo­ple."T&T will fare much bet­ter un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar than Row­ley," Warn­er said."I re­main ful­ly com­mit­ted to its (the PP) cause."Nev­er will I be­tray or be dis­loy­al to the PP. No­body has de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter more than I."

In the same breath, Warn­er asked the crowd since when sus­pi­cion and al­le­ga­tions were the ba­sis for hound­ing some­one out of of­fice.He said against the ad­vice of po­lit­i­cal pun­dits, he re­turned to con­test the Ch­agua­nas West seat for val­i­da­tion from his con­stituents.He said he spent 35 months as Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and no one can ac­cuse him of any cor­rupt ac­tiv­i­ty.

Warn­er said he had asked for a salary of $1 for his po­lit­i­cal ser­vices and for the next year, he will take 50 cents.He said two weeks be­fore his res­ig­na­tion, he wrote Per­sad-Bisses­sar telling her to let him re­sign and go af­ter Row­ley whom he blamed for the main at­tack on him, and re­turn to his con­stituents for val­i­da­tion."Every­thing I said I will do I am do­ing," he said.

"Why this ha­tred and spite and ven­om from some of her key min­is­ters?"Warn­er promised to hold the PM's hand and walk in the East-West Cor­ri­dor to help her win the area.