While Pa­tri­ot­ic Front Po­lit­i­cal Leader Mick­ela Pan­day is dou­bling down on her par­ty’s crit­i­cism of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ad­min­is­tra­tion, call­ing it a dic­ta­tor­ship, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are ques­tion­ing the weight her crit­i­cism car­ries.

Pan­day’s lat­est re­marks came just one day af­ter she pub­licly ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of es­ca­lat­ing its as­saults on de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing those tasked with main­tain­ing trans­paren­cy, jus­tice, and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day out­side Par­lia­ment, Pan­day said she is deeply con­cerned by what she de­scribed as a dan­ger­ous ero­sion of con­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards.

“I find things to be quite di­vi­sive, and I just don’t feel that is the way we should go now. We’ve just come out of an elec­tion where peo­ple choose sides. I think you have to unite peo­ple, and there is a way to do things with class and grace. I don’t be­lieve in heavy-hand­ed­ness, and it be­gins the con­ver­sa­tion that you could be see­ing a creep­ing dic­ta­tor­ship,” Pan­day said.

On Thurs­day, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader called on the UNC Gov­ern­ment to stop bul­ly­ing those who hold dif­fer­ing views, in­clud­ing Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and the Ju­di­cia­ry.

Yes­ter­day, she al­so weighed in on Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed ad­just­ments to the age lim­its for al­co­hol con­sump­tion, smok­ing mar­i­jua­na, and gam­bling call­ing them com­mend­able. But Pan­day said en­force­ment is crit­i­cal.

“We can put 100 laws every sin­gle day. It is the en­force­ment. You can bring the biggest leg­isla­tive agen­da—it comes down to en­force­ment. I am hap­py for any­thing that works, but how are we en­forc­ing this? I don’t know. Is it that peo­ple will have to present their ID, sort of like what is done in the Amer­i­can sys­tem? How is it go­ing to work?”

Pan­day al­so main­tained that de­spite pub­lic crit­i­cisms about her par­ty’s ap­par­ent si­lence in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape af­ter the gen­er­al elec­tion, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front re­mained vig­i­lant.

The Gov­ern­ment has yet to re­spond to Pan­day’s com­ments.

But, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said Pan­day’s re­cent scold­ing of the Gov­ern­ment will have lit­tle im­pact on its op­er­a­tions.

“You see, the prob­lem is Mick­ela has be­come the per­pet­u­al pes­simist, and re­gard­less of whether it is any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, she will al­ways have some­thing neg­a­tive to say. It is as if no­body but her has the an­swers, no­body but her can gov­ern prop­er­ly or gov­ern ef­fec­tive­ly.”

Mo­hammed urged Pan­day to in­stead share per­spec­tives to guide gov­er­nance rather than of­fer­ing con­ve­nient com­men­tary.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said that while Pan­day’s warn­ing about al­leged bul­ly­ing of high pub­lic of­fi­cials and in­sti­tu­tions is se­ri­ous, her cred­i­bil­i­ty as a mes­sen­ger may be in ques­tion.

“It’s a very strong state­ment, but I’m not sure that it’s the kind of state­ment that would move the Op­po­si­tion or the Gov­ern­ment—if on­ly be­cause it’s cast­ing blame where per­haps blame might not be the thing to cast,” James said.

He ac­knowl­edged that Pan­day, who is al­so the daugh­ter of for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, still func­tions with­in the po­lit­i­cal realm, with am­bi­tions of her own. “She has her views, and she’s look­ing to go places, but she just doesn’t have the sub­stance to take her where she wants to go,” he added.

De­spite his reser­va­tions, James said any voice speak­ing out against abuse—par­tic­u­lar­ly on­line abuse—is worth pay­ing at­ten­tion to.