Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar claims cracks with­in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) were ex­posed in par­lia­ment when Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West MP Stu­art Young was rep­ri­mand­ed by House Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George on Thurs­day, for his re­marks against the Op­po­si­tion dur­ing a hot mic in­ci­dent dur­ing last week’s Bud­get de­bate.

Dur­ing the in­ci­dent, Young di­rect­ed of­fen­sive com­ments, in­clud­ing a ho­mo­pho­bic slur to­wards Per­sad-Bisses­sar, while the Op­po­si­tion was ex­it­ing the House. The clip of the in­ci­dent went vi­ral and gar­nered wide­spread con­dem­na­tion.

Young was rep­ri­mand­ed for his be­hav­iour by House Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George on Thurs­day af­ter the House passed the Bud­get. She not­ed that the mat­ter was wide­ly pub­li­cised and had brought the House in­to odi­um and dis­re­pute.

Young avoid­ed be­ing sent to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee af­ter apol­o­gis­ing.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the di­vi­sion was clear in the at­tempt to save Young from the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. “House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George rep­ri­mand­ed Stu­art but was clear­ly not will­ing to take the in­struc­tion to spare him the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee. Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde was read­i­ly wait­ing on the wing to take the Speak­er’s chair. She ex­it­ed the cham­ber and did not pre­side over the Op­po­si­tion’s mat­ter of priv­i­lege. Then, Young read from a pre­pared state­ment where he apol­o­gised. Fol­low­ing that, the Deputy Speak­er made his rul­ing to not send Stu­art to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee from a pre­pared state­ment.”

She added, “ It is note­wor­thy that the en­tire PNM bench did not thump their desks in uni­son af­ter the Deputy Speak­er’s rul­ing, in par­tic­u­lar a num­ber of fe­male MPs.” Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed that “had Young faced the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, it would have giv­en his PNM col­leagues who are against his bid for PNM lead­er­ship an op­por­tu­ni­ty to cut him down, as there are deep di­vides in the PNM since Row­ley’s anoint­ing of Stu­art as his suc­ces­sor.”

She said the scan­dal ex­posed what she claimed was Young’s “true colour.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar his com­ments al­so cre­at­ed an un­com­fort­able work en­vi­ron­ment.

“This caus­es dis­tress and prob­lems for your health, job, re­la­tion­ships or oth­er parts of your life. Min­is­ter Young’s com­ments has ac­tu­al­ly opened up a need­ed con­ver­sa­tion on this type of be­hav­iour in the work­place.”

How­ev­er, PNM La­dy Vice Chair Camille Robin­son-Reg­is yes­ter­day stood up in de­fence of Young.

“As far as I am aware, no di­vi­sion ex­ists with­in our par­ty—we leave that sort of canal pol­i­tics to the Op­po­si­tion.

The Women’s League stands firm­ly be­hind Min­is­ter Young and will con­tin­ue to ad­vo­cate for fair­ness and re­spect in our po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment,” Robin­son-Reg­is said.

An­a­lysts agree

all is not well

Com­ment­ing yes­ter­day on the de­ci­sion not to re­fer Young to the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, po­lit­i­cal An­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said the de­ci­sion al­so un­der­scored frag­men­ta­tion with­in the PNM.

“There was not full fledge sup­port even with­in the PNM for that apol­o­gy to be ac­cept­ed in that way, al­so, from a gen­der per­spec­tive, clear­ly the Speak­er made a strong rul­ing and it was left to a man to say we ac­cept your apol­o­gy and move on, so from a gen­der per­spec­tive, even with­in the PNM there may not be that de­gree of sup­port and for­give­ness for Stu­art Young.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad mean­while called for Young’s res­ig­na­tion. She la­belled the ut­ter­ances as in­flam­ma­to­ry, not­ing they had un­der­mined his lead­er­ship thrust in the PNM.

“He’s ac­tu­al­ly spoilt any chances of be­com­ing the par­ty leader with those com­ments and more than the Priv­i­leges Com­mit­tee, which I think he should have been cor­rect­ly re­ferred to be­cause this cer­tain­ly war­rants that and there were ob­scen­i­ties in­volved as well as un­savoury, un­be­com­ing re­marks which could be defam­a­to­ry.”

Al­so con­tact­ed, po­lit­i­cal An­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the man­ner in which it was han­dled in the Par­lia­ment was just pure pol­i­tics at play.

How­ev­er, he too ex­pressed the view that all may not be well with­in the PNM as it re­lates to Min­is­ter Young.

He point­ed to the fact that sev­er­al MPs on the Gov­ern­ment bench did not thump their desks in sup­port of Young af­ter he gave his apol­o­gy.

“There are per­sons who are not on par and they are not on board, so to speak, with the pos­si­bil­i­ty of him be­ing hoist­ed on the pop­u­la­tion and the par­ty, so there are go­ing to be those who are go­ing to find dif­fer­ent ways, cre­ative ways to give their two cents on it or their re­ac­tions,” Mo­hammed said.

He said oth­ers may play to the tune of the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Young be­ing par­ty leader be­cause it may lead to their po­lit­i­cal sur­vival and oth­ers may be at the point where what­ev­er hap­pens next, they don’t care be­cause they have al­ready made up their minds to go in­to po­lit­i­cal re­tire­ment.

“So there is that justling of per­son­al­i­ties that would be in favour, not in favour, in­dif­fer­ent and it will tell from how they be­have, how they re­act to cer­tain things...but all is not well. I can def­i­nite­ly as­sure you that all is not well in Bal­isi­er House as it per­tains to this idea that the Prime Min­is­ter is show­ing that this is who I pre­fer...he’s go­ing to have to find a dif­fer­ent way to make this de­ci­sion or to con­cre­tise this de­ci­sion, if that is what he wants with­out a huge fall­out from the par­ty it­self.”

Dr Mo­hammed al­so gave cred­it to House Speak­er Bridgid An­nisette-George for the way she ad­mon­ished Young.

Pride TT trou­bled by de­ci­sion

Co-founder of Pride TT, Kennedy Everett Maraj, told Guardian Me­dia that while House Speak­er’s ad­mon­ish­ment of Young was nec­es­sary and ap­pro­pri­ate, the lack of mean­ing­ful ac­tion was trou­bling. “What mes­sage are we send­ing to our youth and the broad­er com­mu­ni­ty when we al­low ho­mo­pho­bia to be used as a weapon against some­one’s char­ac­ter, life, and liveli­hood? What will it take to elim­i­nate ho­mo­pho­bia in our so­ci­ety so that we can lead not just with tol­er­ance, but with gen­uine re­spect for the dig­ni­ty and worth of every in­di­vid­ual?”

He main­tained that ho­mo­pho­bia was not pi­cong and had no place in the coun­try’s Par­lia­ment.