Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she can­not and will not be con­trolled by any in­di­vid­ual or group to pro­mote any sin­gu­lar agen­da at the ex­pense of oth­er sec­tions of so­ci­ety - and that the pub­lic rants by a few on­ly help “the op­pres­sive PNM Gov­ern­ment”.

That was among Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­spons­es to UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly’s ver­bal at­tack yes­ter­day.

And Leader of Gov­ern­ment House Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is in Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, brought up Ram­bal­ly’s ac­tions, with loud PNM desk-thump­ing sup­port.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a state­ment, as did UNC deputy lead­ers Roodal Mooni­lal and Jear­lean John and MP Bar­ry Padarath, fol­low­ing Ch­agua­nas West MP Ram­bal­ly’s at­tack against Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Soon af­ter the start of Par­lia­ment’s sit­ting at 1.30 pm, when UNC MPs were protest­ing Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s non-re­ply to a ques­tion, Robin­son-Reg­is said, “It’s clear what the Mem­ber for Ch­agua­nas West has is­sued is hav­ing all of them feel­ing very antsy and clear­ly they’ve for­got­ten the deco­rum of the Par­lia­ment ... so you need to reread what Ch­agua­nas West said ...”

She was sup­port­ed by long PNM desk-thump­ing sup­port.

Robin­son-Reg­is con­tin­ued speak­ing but was drowned out by UNC MP Ravi Rati­ram, who protest­ed she was be­ing ir­rel­e­vant. Rati­ram was over­ruled by Deputy Speak­er Es­mond Forde.

While Ram­bal­ly was at Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Per­sad- Bisses­sar wasn’t. At 2 pm, she is­sued a state­ment on his ac­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar stat­ed, “The UNC will con­tin­ue to be a par­ty of tol­er­ance and love for all re­li­gions, eth­nic­i­ties and cul­tures un­der my lead­er­ship. Our great par­ty is open to all peo­ple, from all walks of life and every­one’s be­liefs, faiths, morals and val­ues must be re­spect­ed as all are equal­ly im­por­tant. There is no room for in­tol­er­ance and ex­trem­ism of any type in the UNC and our coun­try.

“As leader, I rep­re­sent all peo­ple equal­ly and fair­ly, I can­not and will not be con­trolled by any in­di­vid­ual or group to pro­mote any sin­gu­lar agen­da at the ex­pense of oth­er sec­tions of so­ci­ety. I’ll pro­mote the well-be­ing of all our di­verse beau­ti­ful peo­ple with the same lev­el of love and com­mit­ment as I’ve al­ways shown in my life.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said pre­cau­tions were tak­en with the shar­ing of in­for­ma­tion in­ter­nal­ly af­ter three UNC MPs vot­ed against the UNC nom­i­nee Is­rael Khan in the vote for the elec­tion of the pres­i­dent.

“Those pre­cau­tions were made to pro­tect the par­ty so some mem­bers and MPs will not be aware of all the ac­tiv­i­ties oc­cur­ring with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” she said.

She added, “I’ll con­tin­ue par­tic­i­pat­ing in every as­pect of our mul­ti-cul­tur­al so­ci­ety with­out fear. This is my choice to so do and mine on­ly. Sim­i­lar­ly, I re­spect the right of any in­di­vid­ual who choos­es to not par­tic­i­pate in ac­cor­dance with their own views.

“While there will al­ways be dif­fer­ences in any so­ci­ety, I be­lieve we must love and re­spect all our peo­ple equal­ly. As leader of the UNC, I’ll show every­one tol­er­ance, love, em­pa­thy and com­pas­sion with­out fear or favour. That is my choice. That’s how I have lived my life and al­ways will.”

MPs knock self­ish col­league

On Ram­bal­ly’s ac­tions, MP Mooni­lal cit­ed “the age-old po­lit­i­cal tru­ism that ‘those whom the Gods wish to de­stroy, they first make pa­gal’ (mad)”.

“The po­lit­i­cal Leader is de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed and rep­re­sents the will of the mass mem­ber­ship. We firm­ly sup­port her,” Mooni­lal said.

“Re­cent elec­tions demon­strate that PNM is now de­feat­ed in To­ba­go and Trinidad. The UNC’s on the cusp of a gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry. We will not be dis­tract­ed by agents of the PNM.”

Padarath slammed Ram­bal­ly and oth­er dis­si­dent MPs, say­ing, “The MP let the cat out of the bag. I re­cent­ly in­di­cat­ed mem­bers were en­gag­ing in a pas­sive-ag­gres­sive ap­proach. They very well know they’ve been en­gaged in a cha­rade in re­cent years, un­der­min­ing the leader and par­ty for their own per­son­al in­ter­est.

“We’re a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, not a re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tion. Those in con­flict with par­ty pol­i­cy be­cause of oth­er po­si­tions they hold else­where can­not seek to im­pose those views on the UNC. The par­ty has be­come more di­verse re­li­gious­ly and eth­ni­cal­ly un­der Mrs Per­sad- Bisses­sar. If oth­ers have a prob­lem with that, let them face the elec­torate un­der their per­son­al in­ter­est.”

Padarath added, “Those mem­bers should have spent their time as par­lia­men­tar­i­ans work­ing in par­ty and con­stituen­cy in­ter­est in­stead of un­der­min­ing it for their self­ish in­ter­est. Not once have we re­ceived any as­sis­tance from these mem­bers to build­ing par­ty arms and or­gans. The said MP open­ly sup­port­ed a slate in his own con­stituen­cy for ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions and lost, what does that say about sup­port in his own con­stituen­cy?”

John said, “There are those who run and try to jus­ti­fy why they’re run­ning. They didn’t work in the trench­es. They were giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve the peo­ple. That doesn’t mean to use that which was giv­en to you for your own self-pro­mo­tion.

“They’ll try to jus­ti­fy their be­tray­al by al­leg­ing they’re do­ing so for the par­ty’s good. How could ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ments be for UNC’s bet­ter­ment? To them I say, you fool no one, be­cause you can­not fool the rank and file of this par­ty.”