PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has once again de­nied she has at­tempt­ed to race bait with her speech on Thurs­day night, for which she has been crit­i­cised.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has main­tained that she said: “The blank man on the oth­er side,” which many heard, “The black man on the oth­er side.”

Among those tak­ing is­sue with her state­ment was the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Women’s League. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to the crit­i­cism yes­ter­day, dur­ing a walk­a­bout in Barataria.

“There’s on­ly one race, the hu­man race and that is what I am work­ing for, for the up­lift­ment of all peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­gard­less of which colour of the rain­bow we be­long to. There is no race-bait­ing on our path,” she said. “They have to use some­thing to cam­paign and acts of des­per­a­tion and dis­trac­tion. I am very fo­cused, there is on­ly one race, the hu­man race and that’s where I am and that’s where I’m go­ing.”

Dur­ing the UNC’s pre­sen­ta­tion of can­di­dates on Sat­ur­day night, the Op­po­si­tion Leader re­vis­it­ed the por­tion of her speech that caused the con­tention.

“I want to make a blan­ket state­ment on Mr Blan­kety-Blank. I want to read again a few words which I read on Thurs­day night, boy this man get so vex,” said the UNC leader said as be­gan to re-read the speech.

UNC supporters during a walkabout in Barataria, San Juan yesterday.

Anisto Alves

“He has at­tacked school­child­ren, women, po­lice to the ju­di­cia­ry, busi­ness lead­ers, re­li­gious heads even the me­dia.

“Now the man is now at­tack­ing WASA work­ers about sab­o­tag­ing the wa­ter sup­ply. At­tack­ing WASA work­ers say­ing they are sab­o­tag­ing the wa­ter sup­ply,” she con­tin­ued. “When I de­scribe that do you know who I am. Who am I talk­ing about? You see? I don’t even have to name the man yet you could fill the blanks. B-L-A-N-K-S. Fill the blanks,” said the op­po­si­tion leader.

In a state­ment Sat­ur­day, Chair­per­son of the PNM’s Women’s League, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is said, “The de­bate over whether the Op­po­si­tion Leader said “black” or “blank” is moot when one is able to ad­mit, that Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has been in­volved in pol­i­tics for more than two decades, and un­der­stands very well both what her au­di­ence would have heard through­out her speech and the con­sis­ten­cy of her par­ty’s be­hav­iour.”

She stat­ed lat­er in the re­lease, “With a mere three weeks to go be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tions of 2020, the Women’s League is hop­ing that the Op­po­si­tion Leader and her can­di­dates would seek to re­store some so­bri­ety to the cam­paign, rather than con­tin­ue to plum­met down this road of deca­dence.”