DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­spond­ed to con­cerns about her health and age as she ad­dressed a sea of sup­port­ers at their Code Yel­low ral­ly in Aranguez yes­ter­day. Per­sad-Bisses­sar em­pha­sised her un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to the na­tion and her abil­i­ty to lead.

The UNC leader ad­mit­ted to mak­ing mis­takes in the past and apol­o­gised to par­ty mem­bers. She al­so re­it­er­at­ed her tough stance on crime.

In her fi­nal po­lit­i­cal speech be­fore to­mor­row’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion, she re­flect­ed on her decades-long po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, hav­ing been a mem­ber of the UNC since it was found­ed in 1988. She served as the MP for Siparia since 1995 and was the na­tion’s first fe­male prime min­is­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that, de­spite her age and ap­par­ent frailty, she is more com­mit­ted to serv­ing the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go than she has ever been.

“Yes, I ac­cept that my body ap­pears old now; it looks small and frail. But in­side this body is the mind and heart of a moth­er that is filled with love. A moth­er to all of you. Was I per­fect? No, I wasn’t, and I humbly say sor­ry to my loy­al rank-and-file UNC mem­ber­ship for that. I did make mis­takes.

“But as a good moth­er, I was nev­er ashamed to be with you; I was nev­er ashamed of where we came from. I stood for you and nev­er backed down from any fight to de­fend you. A moth­er’s love on­ly grows as the years go by, so there is more love to­day in this small body for you than there ever was.”

She took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on her years of pub­lic ser­vice, not­ing that the name-call­ing she suf­fered at the hands of her op­po­nents was par­tial­ly re­spon­si­ble for her phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance.

“My body has aged from the years of bat­ter­ing, bruis­ing, hu­mil­i­a­tion, ridicule, abuse and in­sults. I have been called the worst thing any­one can be called. I have been called jam­mette, drunk, dog and every nasty word in be­tween,” she said.

How­ev­er, she ac­knowl­edged that de­spite the harsh­ness of the po­lit­i­cal bat­tle­field, she has nev­er be­come bit­ter.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther af­firmed that she will do every­thing pos­si­ble to make T&T cit­i­zens safe, promis­ing peo­ple-cen­tred poli­cies and plans. She al­so weighed in on a home in­va­sion that saw three sis­ters, 19, 21, and 25, as­sault­ed in San­gre Grande on Fri­day morn­ing. The 21-year-old was raped twice, the 25-year-old was forced to per­form a sex act, and the 19-year-old was choked. She cau­tioned that this will con­tin­ue un­der a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment.

“Don’t let this hap­pen to your fam­i­ly. You vote for the UNC, and we will give you stand your ground laws, home in­va­sion laws and le­gal firearms. And when these bru­tal rapists and vi­o­lent crim­i­nals at­tempt to in­vade your homes, you load up your mat­ic, light them up, emp­ty the whole clip. And when you done knock it on them, knock it again, then call meh name, Kam­la,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pre­vi­ous­ly been crit­i­cised for her stand-your-ground pol­i­cy pro­pos­al which al­lows peo­ple to use dead­ly force against vi­o­lent crimes.

Sev­er­al promi­nent lead­ers al­so took to the stage, un­der­scor­ing their col­lec­tive com­mit­ment to a brighter fu­ture un­der the Coali­tion of In­ter­est.

These lead­ers in­clud­ed Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) leader An­cel Ro­get, Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and David Lee.

BOX

UNC an­tic­i­pates vic­to­ry at polls

UNC Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Jear­lean John is con­fi­dent that her par­ty will un­seat the PNM and be­come the next gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at the Code Yel­low ral­ly, John said the high point for her par­ty was its well-run cam­paign. She al­so said she an­tic­i­pates an in­vari­able vic­to­ry come Mon­day.

“I don’t want to pre-empt our peo­ple. I don’t want peo­ple to say UNC done win al­ready. But I have no doubt in my mind that at 6 pm on Mon­day 28th, UNC will in­vari­ably form the next gov­ern­ment,” she said.

John did not spec­i­fy how the UNC in­tends to fi­nance its pledges, which in­clude a min­i­mum 10 per cent in­crease in pub­lic sec­tor com­pen­sa­tion, a 5 per cent ini­tial re­duc­tion in cor­po­rate tax­es, elim­i­na­tion of VAT on 7,000 ba­sic food items, abo­li­tion of prop­er­ty tax, re­moval of the 7 per cent on­line tax, in­creased fu­el sub­si­dies, ex­emp­tion of tax­es on re­tire­ment ben­e­fits and pri­vate pen­sions and wage hikes for pub­lic ser­vants. These com­mit­ments col­lec­tive­ly re­quire an es­ti­mat­ed $18 bil­lion in ad­di­tion­al rev­enue. How­ev­er, she gave a glimpse in­to the UNC’s ideas.

“Num­ber one, you have to start by look­ing for sav­ings, eh. If you look at what has hap­pened in the last ten years, $500 bil­lion spent and not one ma­jor project was com­plet­ed. So, it means there has been a lot of mis­man­age­ment,” she said.

“So, you start with en­sur­ing that peo­ple work more ef­fi­cient­ly. In ad­di­tion, the gov­ern­ment is the oil and gas on­ly, but that even­tu­al­ly has to be­come a con­tin­gent mea­sure. We have ed­u­ca­tion, we have health­care, we have cul­ture, and we have beau­ti­ful beach­es. That is where we can have mon­ey com­ing in very quick­ly and read­i­ly.”

Mean­while, Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is part of the UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­est, said he looks for­ward to “a min­i­mum of 22-23” seats fol­low­ing the polls.

He said he saw sup­port in tra­di­tion­al PNM strong­holds such as Sea Lots, Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve, George Street and Dun­can Street Port-of-Spain among in­di­vid­u­als who “want Aun­ty Kam­la” and are “look­ing for change”.

“I feel very con­fi­dent that some­thing has hap­pened in this coun­try, and if not the end of, cer­tain­ly the be­gin­ning of racial vot­ing in this coun­try,” he said.