Gail Alexan­der

"What did you do? Where were you? You were nev­er there!"

That was the bat­tle cry ac­cu­sa­tion last night from in­cum­bent UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar against lead­er­ship ri­val Vas­ant Bharath, as she launched her Star slate for De­cem­ber 6 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar came out swing­ing bit­ter­ly, throw­ing words - but not call­ing names - against the ri­val Bharath slate. She al­so had a back­hand for the me­dia, which she said the oth­er team grav­i­tat­ed to.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar com­plained that there was a five-year cy­cle af­ter elec­tions "when trai­tors, lazy op­por­tunists and de­stroy­ers come out to dam­age the UNC ... since 2015 they cam­paigned against us to dam­age our chances, it was more im­por­tant to them to at­tempt to hu­mil­i­ate Kam­la and the UNC in or­der to el­e­vate them­selves."

"They don’t want to el­e­vate them­selves through hard work and mer­it, they want it by tear­ing down oth­ers. The five years of at­tacks from those who want to lead you now, cou­pled with their at­tacks on our young can­di­dates, took its toll on the UNC. Why would un­de­cid­ed vot­ers vote for us when our own mem­bers were cam­paign­ing for PNM against us?"

She said while the oth­er team preached uni­ty, they'd said vile things about her and the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that the "Two Ants" (De­vant Ma­haraj and Vas­ant Bharath) were a tag team al­though Ma­haraj with­drew from the elec­tion race.

"Don't be fooled, they're a tag team, I'll call them out for what they are! All that talk of uni­ty and friend­ship - where were you, we were out every night - where were you? You were on some Face­book page cussing peo­ple."

She slammed "nasty" so­cial me­dia pages where she said peo­ple's faces were car­i­ca­tured and twist­ed. De­tail­ing the Op­po­si­tion work, she said, "'We did very well. I'm not tak­ing the blame!"

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said peo­ple had said the par­ty need­ed young peo­ple, yet when these were ob­tained the same peo­ple said they were school chil­dren.

"Was I ex­pect­ed to by­pass mem­bers who worked hard for years in favour of peo­ple who tried for five years to form their own par­ty with PNM and failed, at­tacked the UNC in the press, cam­paigned against the UNC with the PNM in all elec­tions, helped write the PNM man­i­festo and den­i­grat­ed our own mem­bers?" she asked.

In an ob­vi­ous ref­er­ence to for­mer MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al, she ques­tioned why cer­tain (for­mer) MPs had be­haved as they did. "They sat in Par­lia­ment for 10 years! Then one day they didn't get the seat and you all over the coun­try bad talk­ing the par­ty! Be­cause you didn't get the seat? And say­ing 'tell me why I didn't get the seat'? Gyurl, I don't want to tell you that tonight - I re­al­ly don't want to."

At­tack­ing the me­dia, which she said the ri­val team grav­i­tat­ed to, she claimed state­ments she made on the bank­ing sec­tor were not re­port­ed in main­stream me­dia.

Not­ing the hum­ble be­gin­nings of some UNC MPs - who worked to earn mon­ey to pay for uni­ver­si­ty and were sons of a roti shop op­er­a­tor and taxi dri­ver- Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the elec­tion is­sues from ri­vals in­volved caste and class.

"Is it be­cause they (new peo­ple) came from mod­est back­grounds, those who sub­scribe to caste and class will find no place in the UNC, those days are long gone, if you feel you are high class and the UNC must bow down to you, you're de­lud­ed."

She said when­ev­er she was down, the grass­roots UNC mem­bers al­ways lift­ed her up.

"This is why the great­est gift I could give to the grass­roots mem­ber­ship of our par­ty is to el­e­vate your chil­dren to the lead­er­ship roles with­in this par­ty and Par­lia­ment This is what I 've been do­ing since 2015 ... when I leave in fu­ture, I'd have en­sured that the UNC rank and file mem­ber­ship con­trol their own par­ty and des­tiny."

She warned against par­ty di­vi­sion. On queries about her do­ing the UNC's elec­tion man­u­al, she ex­plained her team had done a man­u­al to guide them­selves for their cam­paign. She said those in the UNC who are against her lead­er­ship are cel­e­brat­ed by PNM op­er­a­tives.