Shas­tri Boodan

The PNM regime un­der Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning is afraid of the sweep­ing changes tak­ing place in the op­po­si­tion forces, says Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the UNC leader. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed hun­dreds of sup­port­ers at the Rien­zi Com­plex car park on Sat­ur­day, at a fete to cel­e­brate her vic­to­ry in the UNC's in­ter­nal elec­tion which took place on Jan­u­ary 24. She said Man­ning would now try to di­vide the pop­u­la­tion by po­lar­is­ing the peo­ple and cre­at­ing "eth­nic in­se­cu­ri­ties" so he could rule in his own in­ter­est. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Man­ning regime had sought to cre­ate a life of com­fort for the Prime Min­is­ter and those around him, dur­ing the re­cent oil boom, but in the same vein the econ­o­my and so­cial ser­vices were col­laps­ing. She said the Jan­u­ary 24 vic­to­ry sig­nalled to the gath­er­ing of forces to start a rev­o­lu­tion of the peo­ple that would see the "be­gin­ning of the end of the Man­ning mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said nev­er be­fore had T&T been in a state of cri­sis for lead­er­ship to re­store a sense of peace, sta­bil­i­ty and progress to the coun­try. She said while the po­lit­i­cal tide may be turn­ing she does not ex­pect easy sail­ing as the na­tion moves to­wards break­ing down the bar­ri­ers of the el­e­ments that sep­a­rate the peo­ple of T&T from unit­ing. She said the UNC now plans to reach out to all groups as they march for­ward. Sport­ing a blue sling to sup­port her dam­aged shoul­der, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived at the venue around 8.50 pm. By this time, one-third of the car park had been filled with sup­port­ers, most of whom were mid­dle-aged women wav­ing flags. Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her hus­band were greet­ed by UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er, the Ch­agua­nas West MP, and a bar­rage of se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel who en­cir­cled the politi­cians.

LEFT: ?Ch­agua­nas West MP, Jack Warn­er, has his hands full at the vic­to­ry fete at Rien­zi Com­plex, on Sat­ur­day night.

She was greet­ed with the usu­al fan­fare be­fore she spoke and was even greet­ed as "Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar" by MCs David Law and Kadi­jah Ameen. Most of the artistes who ap­peared on stage paid trib­ute to the new UNC boss in song. Mi­a­mi based singer, Cafidia Stew­art, sang Wind Be­neath My Wings and her own com­po­si­tion Kam­la is Num­ber 1. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who seemed touched by the smooth voice of the Mi­a­mi-based singer, joined Stew­art for the per­for­mance. Denyse Plum­mer dished out a bar­rage of songs that in­clud­ing Kam­la is Boss, ver­sion of Plum­mer's clas­sic Woman is Boss. Al­so ap­pear­ing were the Orig­i­nal De Fos­to, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, the Ma­yaro MP, JMC Triveni, Hunter and sev­er­al dance items, in­clud­ing a fu­sion of African and In­di­an styles of dance per­formed by the Barataria Folk Per­form­ers and the Mal­ick In­di­an dancers. The crowd at the free event was es­ti­mat­ed to be around 4000 by the time the show fin­ished around 2.30am yes­ter­day.