KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As con­fet­ti blew past the over­grown and un­fin­ished struc­ture of the pro­posed Shi­va Boys’ Hin­du Col­lege, cheers erupt­ed among scores of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers turned out to wel­come Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s mo­tor­cade in her Siparia con­stituen­cy.

The sec­ondary school is one of sev­er­al projects ini­ti­at­ed un­der the UNC-led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010 and 2015 but left in­com­plete by the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ar­rived two hours and 35 min­utes lat­er than the sched­uled start time, was quick­ly sur­round­ed by en­thu­si­as­tic sup­port­ers dressed in yel­low and blue—many try­ing to record videos or hop­ing for a hand­shake or hug.

How­ev­er, it was the chil­dren who re­ceived her spe­cial at­ten­tion, as she paused to pose for pho­tographs and record videos with them.

Thank­ing the con­stituen­cy she has rep­re­sent­ed since her first elec­tion in 1995, Per­sad-Bisses­sar reaf­firmed her deep con­nec­tion to the area.

“Siparia re­mains my home, and I am who I am be­cause of Siparia, so give your­selves a round of ap­plause. God bless you all—let’s hit the ground,” she said.

“Let us go out and say thank you to the en­tire con­stituen­cy. I am a bit un­der the weath­er, but God is al­ways great, so let us put God in front, and we will con­tin­ue to walk be­hind. God bless every­one.”

As Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “thank you” mo­tor­cade left its start­ing point at the Pe­nal Fire Sta­tion where large crowds had gath­ered, the mu­sic truck blared Ce­line Dion’s A New Day Has Come, fol­lowed by the par­ty’s 2015 cam­paign an­them, When UNC Wins, Every­body Wins.

Sur­round­ed by her grand­sons and se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel, she stood atop a truck, wav­ing and flash­ing thumbs-up signs to res­i­dents lin­ing the pave­ments and road­side along Clarke Road and through oth­er com­mu­ni­ties in her Siparia con­stituen­cy.

It marked the cul­mi­na­tion of a whirl­wind week for the 73-year-old UNC po­lit­i­cal leader, who pre­vi­ous­ly suf­fered gen­er­al elec­tion de­feats in 2015 and 2020. De­spite in­ter­nal par­ty chal­lenges last year, she suc­cess­ful­ly led a coali­tion of in­ter­ests to a de­ci­sive 26–13 vic­to­ry over the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment just one week ago.

Her mo­tor­cade came a day af­ter she wit­nessed the swear­ing-in of her new Cab­i­net, which in­cludes sev­er­al fresh faces and new­ly es­tab­lished min­istries.