Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has called on the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion (EBC) to say if it's true that two EBC Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers for cer­tain mar­gin­al seats in the San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion are reg­is­tered PNM mem­bers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did so at last night's UNC Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign meet­ing at the Pe­nal Sec­ondary School.

She urged spe­cial vot­ers to go to the polls this week to vote for com­pas­sion, love and care and "get rid of dic­ta­tor Row­ley" and said vot­ers should al­so "ri­ot next Mon­day with your vot­ing fin­ger."

She added, "I want to ask the EBC what cri­te­ria they used to se­lect Re­turn­ing Of­fi­cers (RO) for San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion elec­tion. Is it true that RO’s John Mark George and Lorett Hope Mc­Don­ald are reg­is­tered PNM mem­bers?"

She claimed George is RO for Les Ef­forts East, Les Ef­forts West and Spring­vale Par­adise and Mc­Don­ald is RO for Mara­bel­la East, Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la and Mara­bel­la West.

"All of these are hot­ly con­test­ed mar­gin­al seats. I call on these of­fi­cers, are you on a PNM reg­is­tered mem­bers' list? If you are, you must dis­close con­flict of in­ter­est. Be­fore this week is done we'll bring more names," she said, urg­ing elec­tion agents to be vig­i­lant and "light dem up!"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC's al­so send­ing a let­ter to as­cer­tain the names of EBC pre­sid­ing and deputy pre­sid­ing of­fi­cers and if they're con­flict­ed, "We'll light them up al­so!"

She al­so al­leged an EBC com­mis­sion­er is a se­nior part­ner in a law firm that got over $23 mil­lion in le­gal briefs from Gov­ern­ment.

"So I re­peat my call for in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers…this Gov­ern­ment des­per­ate!"

She al­so ques­tioned if In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Dr Ra­jen­dra Ramkissoon and com­mis­sion­er Fred­er­ick Gilkes' po­si­tions were up for re­new­al soon and they were do­ing Gov­ern­ment's bid­ding - in the is­sue of the Prime Min­is­ter's To­ba­go apart­ment - to get re­newals. She said they'd em­barked on a dan­ger­ous prece­dent and the mat­ter's go­ing to court.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley of be­ing more con­cerned about crim­i­nals than cit­i­zens' lives.

"...Talk­ing about 'rea­son­able force'. He say­ing 'Kam­la dan­ger­ous'. But I'm, proud to be dan­ger­ous, I'm dan­ger­ous to stand for the peo­ple! This is the same man who talks about mil­lions of rounds of am­mu­ni­tion miss­ing but can­not pro­vide a shred of ev­i­dence - you hear lie?" she said.

She slammed crit­ics of her "light em up call."

"They down my throat but I'll stand my ground! They call me a dan­ger­ous woman. Yes, I have to be a dan­ger­ous woman be­cause there are too many weak men and weak women in po­si­tions who do noth­ing to pro­tect you!"

Re­peat­ing her "light em up" call sev­er­al times, she claimed most Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters have guns. She said po­lice, prison of­fi­cers and Coast Guard must be grant­ed a per­son­al gun paid for by the state, get a bet­ter in­crease than four per cent and ex­tra du­ty pay, plus GATE fund­ing for chil­dren's ed­u­ca­tion.

"When you go to vote, vote against that evil 4% in­sult and evil Gov­ern­ment!"

Say­ing Trini­bad mu­sic is very pop­u­lar among youth feel­ing dis­re­gard­ed and mar­gin­alised, she added, "I al­so agree many gangs al­so use Trini­bad mu­sic to pro­mote them­selves, but it's al­so true many kids just like it for fun."

She said she was reach­ing out to youths and speak­ing their lan­guage for them to be­come in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal process.

UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal al­so said the last time a PNM came to Pe­nal "he break he tail by the fire sta­tion." "Small Fin or Pin or some­thing like dat ..." he added.

"This feel like a gen­er­al elec­tion and the PNM is des­per­ate, they're sens­ing de­feat! I want tell Row­ley he prob­lem ent Jack Warn­er - is Al­lan Warn­er..."