Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) of run­ning an elec­tion cam­paign based on “neg­a­tiv­i­ty, un­hap­pi­ness, smears and in­sults,” which she’d nev­er seen in all her years.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment at Tues­day’s meet­ing in St Joseph.

Ad­dress­ing the crowd, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said over the years peo­ple have had many things to say about how she chose to lead.

“They of­ten mis­take my kind­ness for weak­ness. I still main­tain that po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship is about love, em­pa­thy, car­ing, about com­pe­tence, ex­pe­ri­ence, and emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence,” she said.

“It’s about com­pas­sion borne out of shared ex­pe­ri­ences of sac­ri­fice ... Strong, com­pe­tent lead­er­ship isn’t about bouff­ing, be­rat­ing, blam­ing and bul­ly­ing cit­i­zens, it’s about lis­ten­ing, com­fort­ing, car­ing, en­cour­ag­ing and ac­cept­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the lives and liveli­hoods of our peo­ple.”

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the PNM of run­ning “...an en­tire cam­paign based on neg­a­tiv­i­ty, un­hap­pi­ness, smears and in­sults. In all my years, I’ve nev­er seen any par­ty run such a neg­a­tive, in­sult­ing and abu­sive cam­paign.”

“Their cam­paign was based on anger, bit­ter­ness, abuse, in­sults and dis­parag­ing the in­tel­li­gence of the elec­torate. I told Kennedy (Swarats­ingh) when he was in the Par­lia­ment—on the oth­er side—John (Je­re­mie) too, that Par­lia­ment was nev­er like how it is un­der this present Gov­ern­ment for the past 10 years with the Row­ley- Young Gov­ern­ment,” she said.

“That oth­er Par­lia­ment was a place of de­cent hu­man be­ings, we worked to­geth­er for the peo­ple’s bet­ter­ment. But this Gov­ern­ment showed no love on their plat­forms, no grat­i­tude to cit­i­zens.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “I see a young man as­pir­ing to be elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter - he’s the one-day Prime Min­is­ter. I saw an ar­ti­cle where he says he’s not Row­ley 2.0 - this man who trav­elled with Row­ley, who gave Stu­ar­tie every­thing, anoint­ing and ap­point­ing him and he has no grat­i­tude. He failed his first test of hav­ing a cam­paign to win - he had to call ‘Dad­dy Row­ley’ to come back to cam­paign for him!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said cit­i­zens can hold the UNC “... to ac­count for every­thing we say on this plat­form be­cause we’ll en­sure when UNC wins, every­body wins.”

At the end of the meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who turned 73 that day, was ser­e­nad­ed by artistes, in­clud­ing Neil “Iw­er” George, who is known to have sup­port­ed the PNM at one time.

George pre­sent­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar with flow­ers, say­ing he had two presents for her. Af­ter de­liv­er­ing the flow­ers, he added, “The next one, I have to take off mih jer­sey for that.” (See page 8)

George re­moved his top gar­ment, re­veal­ing he was wear­ing a UNC jer­sey be­neath. He went on to sing “De Peo­ple want Kam­la!,” urg­ing peo­ple to vote on elec­tion day.