Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will at­tend next week’s 50th Con­fer­ence of Heads of Gov­ern­ment of Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty (Cari­com) “un­der a cloud,” ac­cord­ing to Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader San­jiv Bood­hu.

Bood­hu crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance, claim­ing she had pre­vi­ous­ly made dis­parag­ing re­marks about Cari­com and dis­tanced Trinidad and To­ba­go from a re­gion­al move­ment the coun­try helped pi­o­neer.

“A na­tion­al and re­gion­al em­bar­rass­ment is what this UNC Gov­ern­ment is,” Bood­hu said yes­ter­day.

It was con­firmed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar will at­tend the up­com­ing Cari­com con­fer­ence in St Kitts. She did not at­tend the 49th con­fer­ence in 2025 or oth­er in-per­son Cari­com meet­ings in­volv­ing re­gion­al lead­ers. Dur­ing her tenure, the Prime Min­is­ter — who has sup­port­ed US mil­i­tary ac­tion in the re­gion against Venezuela — has sharply crit­i­cised Cari­com, de­scrib­ing it as “dys­func­tion­al” and an “un­re­li­able part­ner,” and ques­tion­ing the bloc’s Zone of Peace prin­ci­ple.

How­ev­er, dur­ing a re­cent vis­it by cur­rent Cari­com chair­man Ter­rence Drew, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that while Cari­com re­quired ur­gent trans­for­ma­tion, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mained com­mit­ted to Caribbean uni­ty.

Bood­hu ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­ten­dance al­so comes amid what he de­scribed as a se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sue at home. He ref­er­enced the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent al­le­ga­tion that a se­nior Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor had been ap­proached by two In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for per­son­al favours in ex­change for sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Zones (ZOSO) bill.

“She has ac­cused a sen­a­tor in her own Gov­ern­ment of crim­i­nal con­duct and mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, has re­fused to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion lead­ing to in­ves­ti­ga­tion, ar­rest or pros­e­cu­tion, and has failed to re­move that Gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor,” Bood­hu said.

“Every leg­isla­tive prod­uct of her Gov­ern­ment is there­fore taint­ed by the per­cep­tion of al­leged crim­i­nal­i­ty. These are the cir­cum­stances un­der which Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Prime Min­is­ter is go­ing to sit with re­gion­al lead­ers at their high­est fo­rum.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath sug­gest­ed the Prime Min­is­ter may be seek­ing to re­cal­i­brate her re­gion­al pos­ture.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has re­alised that, so far in her term, she has in a way mar­gin­alised Cari­com and has now de­cid­ed to put her­self and Trinidad and To­ba­go for­ward to en­sure she has a seat at the ta­ble,” Ra­goonath said.

He added that while lead­ers would en­gage her diplo­mat­i­cal­ly, the re­cep­tion might not be as warm as she would hope, not­ing that some Cari­com mem­ber states — in­clud­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and to a less­er ex­tent Do­mini­ca and St Lu­cia — have tak­en is­sue with Trinidad and To­ba­go’s stance un­der her lead­er­ship.

Ra­goonath al­so point­ed to re­marks made by re­cent­ly re-elect­ed Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley dur­ing her coun­try’s gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. Mot­t­ley crit­i­cised the Bar­ba­dos Op­po­si­tion De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Labour Par­ty for adopt­ing the slo­gan “Yel­low is the code,” a phrase as­so­ci­at­ed with the UNC’s 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Fol­low­ing an in­ter­view by DLP leader Ralph Thorne on Trinidad and To­ba­go Tele­vi­sion (TTT), Mot­t­ley ques­tioned what the slo­gan im­plied, ask­ing whether it re­ferred to cam­paign fi­nanc­ing or ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal sup­port. She said her par­ty would not be sub­servient to any po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty in the Caribbean. Her Bar­ba­dos Labour Par­ty ul­ti­mate­ly de­feat­ed the DLP.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment was al­so ac­cused by for­mer St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Ralph Gon­salves of at­tempt­ing to in­flu­ence that coun­try’s 2025 elec­tion through al­leged UNC-linked op­er­a­tives sup­port­ing the New De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty.

Pro­fes­sor An­tho­ny Gon­za­les, Hon­orary Se­nior Fel­low of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions De­part­ment, said the Prime Min­is­ter’s at­ten­dance may be in­tend­ed to counter per­cep­tions that she had dis­tanced her­self from Cari­com.

“I don’t think the re­cep­tion to her will be any dif­fer­ent,” Gon­za­les said. “There have al­ways been dis­agree­ments with­in Cari­com, but lead­ers meet and work things out at the ta­ble. She has not said Trinidad and To­ba­go is leav­ing Cari­com.”

He sug­gest­ed that agen­da items could in­clude US trade pol­i­cy, tar­iffs, and con­cerns over Amer­i­can eco­nom­ic pres­sure on coun­tries that en­gage with Cuban med­ical pro­fes­sion­als.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Am­bas­sador to Cari­com, Ralph Maraj, said he was en­gaged in meet­ings and would com­ment at a lat­er time.