RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With T&T fac­ing its first pos­si­ble case of com­mu­ni­ty spread of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has back­tracked on her calls for the re­open­ing of T&T’s bor­ders.

Dur­ing a mo­tor­cade at the Pointe-a-Pierre con­stituen­cy on Wednes­day af­ter­noon, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked whether she was still in sup­port of the re­open­ing the bor­ders.

She re­spond­ed, “I said be­fore we will be guid­ed by health pro­to­cols. T&T has been guid­ed over the last sev­er­al months by WHO (World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion) health pro­to­cols and I main­tain that we con­tin­ue to be guid­ed by those pro­to­cols.”

The UNC motorcade passing the Southern Main Road in Marabella yesterday.

RISHI RAGOONATH

She added, “On Au­gust 10, vote UNC and every child will get a free lap­top.”

Re­gard­ing a video in­volv­ing the UNC’s To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date Nabi­la Greene, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I don’t know any­thing about that.” Greene has since de­nied it was her in the video.

Ear­li­er this month, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a re­open­ing of the bor­ders to fa­cil­i­tate the elec­tion. She said cit­i­zens were be­ing dis­en­fran­chised adding that her par­ty had lawyers stand­ing by to chal­lenge the clo­sure of the bor­ders dur­ing the elec­tion.

She ac­cused the gov­ern­ment of “de­priv­ing cit­i­zens of the right to vote,” in the Au­gust 10 polls say­ing the gov­ern­ment is choos­ing to put sys­tems in place for Caribbean Pre­mier League (CPL) crick­et com­pe­ti­tion in­stead of al­low­ing na­tion­als to come home dur­ing this time of elec­tions.

A police officer looks at the documents before the UNC motorcade starts at Tropical Plaza in Pointe a Pierre in the constituency of San Fernando West

RISHI RAGOONATH

Mean­while, UNC can­di­date for Pointe-a-Pierre David Lee said all pro­to­cols were fol­lowed dur­ing the par­ty’s mo­tor­cade which be­gan from Trop­i­cal Plaza in Pointe-a-Pierre.

He said per­mis­sion for a mu­sic truck was grant­ed from the Trans­port Com­mis­sion­er and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith was giv­en de­tails about the route for the mo­tor­cade. 

Lee said all COVID-19 pro­to­cols were be­ing fol­lowed dur­ing his cam­paign. He said dur­ing the ex­u­ber­ance of elec­tions, some sup­port­ers may want to greet can­di­dates and he hoped that no one will be of­fend­ed if can­di­dates fol­low COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions.