RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

En­dorse­ments are con­tin­u­ing to pour in for Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as she an­nounced in­ter­nal elec­tions for the post of Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), just days af­ter throw­ing down the gaunt­let to chal­lengers with­in her par­ty.

In a fiery de­c­la­ra­tion last Mon­day in Pe­nal, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dared po­ten­tial con­tenders to face her at the polls, say­ing:

“You want it? Come and take it! I will be wait­ing.”

The state­ment has since prompt­ed ex­pres­sions of sup­port from both se­nior par­ty fig­ures and long-stand­ing mem­bers.

Among the lat­est to pub­licly en­dorse her lead­er­ship is Dan­ny Ma­haraj, for­mer Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and cur­rent Chair­man of the Pa­lo Seco Agri­cul­tur­al En­ter­pris­es Lim­it­ed (PSAEL).

In a state­ment, Ma­haraj praised the Prime Min­is­ter’s lead­er­ship as un­matched and trans­for­ma­tive, say­ing she was "the moth­er of the na­tion."

“Our Ho­n­ourable Leader has cre­at­ed a lega­cy of prin­ci­pled lead­er­ship, un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues and has an un­matched ded­i­ca­tion to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Ma­haraj stat­ed.

“Her lead­er­ship con­tin­ues to in­spire con­fi­dence, both with­in the par­ty and across the na­tion­al land­scape. She has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed the ca­pac­i­ty to unite di­verse com­mu­ni­ties, stand firm­ly for jus­tice, and ad­vo­cate for the mar­gin­al­ized.”

Ma­haraj de­scribed Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “liv­ing leg­end and na­tion­al trea­sure”, adding:

“We all owe an eter­nal grate­ful­ness for the su­per­hu­man sac­ri­fices she has made, in­spir­ing lead­ers across gen­er­a­tions.”

The en­dorse­ment fol­lows ear­li­er com­ments by UNC Chair­man Dave Tan­coo, who al­so en­dorsed Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

UNC Deputy Leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal dis­missed the idea of a chal­lenge to Per­sad-Bisses­sar as ab­surd when asked about it at a post Cab­i­net press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment that the par­ty's Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive will meet soon to an­nounce an elec­tion date, has so far not drawn any of­fi­cial chal­lengers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC since 2010 and served as the coun­try’s first fe­male Prime Min­is­ter.