DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) vice chair­man Dr Amery Browne launched a scathing in­dict­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the par­ty’s 70th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions at Queen’s Hall on Mon­day.

Browne sug­gest­ed that the coun­try is cur­rent­ly en­dur­ing a pe­ri­od of moral and po­lit­i­cal de­cline.

“Our twin is­land re­pub­lic is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a sea­son at present of ex­treme spir­i­tu­al wicked­ness and lit­er­al wicked­ness, the likes of which the halls of pow­er in this na­tion have nev­er seen be­fore. All our na­tion­al stan­dards, norms, ideals and val­ues are be­ing sab­o­taged and de­stroyed by a Prime Min­is­ter who in­sists on think­ing for the rest of us when it is clear that she can­not even think for her­self,” Browne told the au­di­ence.

Draw­ing par­al­lels to the colo­nial era, Browne ar­gued that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion is squan­der­ing the man­date giv­en by the pop­u­la­tion and lead­ing the coun­try back in­to a state of de­pen­den­cy.

“They re­mained en­thralled and cap­ti­vat­ed by the al­lure of re­main­ing in colo­nial de­pen­den­cy. It should come as no sur­prise that they have some po­lit­i­cal clones to­day that are do­ing every­thing pos­si­ble to re­duce our na­tion to a shad­ow of its for­mer self, a ser­vant of the newest colo­nial agen­da that has made the cur­rent prime min­is­ter bit­ter and snarling and pre­dictably un­pre­dictable, throw­ing in­sults full of tax­es and fees and fines and per­son­al at­tacks hid­ing from pub­lic scruti­ny and me­dia ex­am­i­na­tion.”

Browne fur­ther as­sert­ed that the PNM’s his­tor­i­cal com­mit­ment to in­ter­na­tion­al law, the UN char­ter and re­gion­al sol­i­dar­i­ty in the Caribbean is be­ing erod­ed by the cur­rent lead­er­ship.

“All of those stan­dards have been tram­pled up­on by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who every day is dis­grac­ing the lega­cy that she met in of­fice,” he said, cit­ing the par­ty’s tra­di­tion­al sup­port for na­tions such as Cu­ba and Grena­da.

The at­mos­phere was fur­ther en­er­gised by Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, who dis­missed crit­i­cisms of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal lead­er­ship while ref­er­enc­ing past gov­ern­ment scan­dals. De­fend­ing leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Cum­mings said, “They will tell you your leader too weak. Their leader could hard­ly climb one tread of step. They will tell you ‘their lead­ers cor­rupt’, but they presided over Life­S­port.”

He urged the mem­ber­ship to “gal­vanise around your lead­ers. Ig­nore their emp­ty rhetoric and send your pos­i­tive en­er­gy to the leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.”

Cum­mings al­so ex­tend­ed a pub­lic mes­sage to the ab­sent for­mer leader, stat­ing, “Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, wher­ev­er you are to­day, we love you in the PNM. We say thank you.”

Ad­dress­ing the crowd, a tri­umphant Beck­les took aim at both her in­ter­nal de­trac­tors and the po­lit­i­cal op­po­si­tion, as­sert­ing her long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to the par­ty with the phrase, “I paid my dues.”

She ac­cused the Prime Min­is­ter of dis­man­tling the lega­cy of her pre­de­ces­sor, Bas­deo Pan­day, and fail­ing to de­liv­er on ba­sic promis­es.

“Just look at the bizarre, crazy, vi­cious, reck­less and dis­re­spect­ful be­hav­iour of the cur­rent Prime Min­is­ter and the cur­rent regime in of­fice. They promise jobs and cre­ate un­em­ploy­ment. They promise low­er tax­es, and then they im­pose more new tax­es and dou­ble the tax­es that ex­ist­ed be­fore. They promise trans­paren­cy and de­liv­er to­tal con­fu­sion. And they promise re­spect and show dis­re­spect, dis­re­gard and the most dis­gust­ing be­hav­iours in the Par­lia­ment and every­where they go,” Beck­les said.

She em­pha­sised a re­turn to the par­ty’s grass­roots foun­da­tions, warn­ing that the PNM must nev­er again be “per­ceived to be dis­con­nect­ing from the hum­ble, ‘every­day peo­ple’ of this great na­tion.”

She ex­plic­it­ly re­ject­ed the no­tion that the par­ty serves on­ly a wealthy elite.

“We do not pro­pose to be in­volved in pro­mot­ing, at the ex­pense of the gen­er­al pop­u­la­tion and the or­di­nary work­ing peo­ple of this na­tion, the in­ter­ests of any spe­cial group (5%, 3%, 1%, 7% or 10%); the PNM is ded­i­cat­ed to lift­ing up all the peo­ple of this na­tion in the best tra­di­tions of our found­ing fa­ther,” she said.

Clos­ing the event, Beck­les sought to re­in­force the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic and in­clu­sive na­ture of the 70-year-old or­gan­i­sa­tion, in­sist­ing that its pow­er re­sides with the mem­ber­ship rather than any in­di­vid­ual.

“We are not a par­ty of ex­clu­sion, and we wel­come all to be a part of what we are, but no­body can feel they can buy the PNM or sell the PNM. And as a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic or­gan­i­sa­tion with a con­sti­tu­tion, no­body can own the PNM, be­cause it be­longs to you and it be­longs to me, this par­ty be­longs to all ah we.”

More than 600 sup­port­ers as­sem­bled for the plat­inum ju­bilee, an event in­tend­ed to show­case the par­ty’s his­tor­i­cal lega­cy and in­sti­tu­tion­al progress.

PNM po­lit­i­cal leader Beck­les sat in the front row, flanked by her ex­ec­u­tive. Be­hind her were cur­rent and past MPs and par­ty of­fi­cials.

Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young sat at the back of the room, up­stairs, far away from cen­tral lead­er­ship. Dur­ing the event, how­ev­er, sev­er­al speak­ers ref­er­enced Young’s con­tri­bu­tion to the par­ty, in­clud­ing Beck­les.

The cel­e­bra­tions were al­so no­tably marked by the ab­sence of for­mer prime min­is­ter Row­ley.

PNM chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Women’s League chair Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly fo­cused on the par­ty’s ori­gins and its con­tri­bu­tions to ed­u­ca­tion and na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment dur­ing their con­tri­bu­tions.

The event end­ed with se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials cut­ting a cel­e­bra­to­ry cake on stage. While past and for­mer MPs and sen­a­tors were in­vit­ed, Young and Faris Al-Rawi, both spot­ted ear­li­er that evening, were ab­sent.