KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Pa­tri­ot­ic Front po­lit­i­cal leader Mick­ela Pan­day yes­ter­day called on the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment to stop bul­ly­ing those they feel hold dif­fer­ing views from theirs.

She made the com­ment amid what she de­scribed as es­ca­lat­ing at­tacks on core de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions, in­clud­ing the Pres­i­dent, In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, and the ju­di­cia­ry.

Pan­day yes­ter­day joined Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark, the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Law As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go in de­fence of the in­di­vid­u­als who have been the tar­get of the UNC’s crit­i­cism in re­cent weeks.

Kan­ga­loo al­so had to de­fend her­self in the wake of what she claimed were un­war­rant­ed at­tacks from the UNC about her in­de­pen­dence, es­pe­cial­ly as it re­lat­ed to the se­lec­tion of the in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors, whose par­tial­i­ty was called to ac­count by the UNC.

Speak­ing dur­ing an Arthur Lok Jack Glob­al School of Busi­ness event on Tues­day, Kan­ga­loo won­dered whether dou­ble stan­dards were be­ing ap­plied to her sit­u­a­tion by po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors.

“It makes no dif­fer­ence that I had giv­en up ac­tive pol­i­tics for a full sev­en years be­fore I was elect­ed Pres­i­dent. It makes no dif­fer­ence that, un­like a for­mer dis­tin­guished pres­i­dent, who just so hap­pened to be male, I did not move from be­ing a Cab­i­net min­is­ter one day, di­rect­ly to be­ing Pres­i­dent the next. It makes no dif­fer­ence that, in any event, our Con­sti­tu­tion specif­i­cal­ly con­tem­plates a sit­ting Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment be­com­ing Pres­i­dent,” Kan­ga­loo said.

“It makes no dif­fer­ence that, for the last 63 years, ever since In­de­pen­dence, com­men­ta­tors have in­vari­ably re­ferred to the Sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by me in ac­cor­dance with the Con­sti­tu­tion as ‘In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’—yet sud­den­ly, for the first time in our his­to­ry, they now re­fer to them as ‘the Pres­i­dent’s Sen­a­tors’.”

In a so­cial me­dia post ad­dress­ing the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion yes­ter­day, Pan­day said, “We are deeply con­cerned by the es­ca­lat­ing pat­tern of at­tacks on the in­sti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to up­hold our democ­ra­cy, in­clud­ing the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, the Pres­i­dent, and the Ju­di­cia­ry.”

Ac­cord­ing to Pan­day, the op­por­tu­ni­ty for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, a dream of her late fa­ther and for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, was missed dur­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s 2010 to 2015 reign but it’s not too late, as she be­lieves it is the on­ly so­lu­tion to the cur­rent tense po­lit­i­cal cli­mate.

She said, “If there are in­sti­tu­tion­al bi­as­es or con­sti­tu­tion­al short­com­ings, which no doubt they are, then the so­lu­tion lies in com­pre­hen­sive con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form.”

She al­so ar­gued that the po­lit­i­cal cli­mate is in­creas­ing­ly dom­i­nat­ed by in­tim­i­da­tion, cy­ber-bul­ly­ing, and di­vi­sive tac­tics used by Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters.

Pan­day added, “Equal­ly dis­turb­ing is the con­tin­ued use of so­cial me­dia by cer­tain min­is­ters to bul­ly, in­tim­i­date. A form of cy­ber­bul­ly­ing that mir­rors con­duct be­fore the elec­tion and has con­tin­ued since. This be­hav­iour nor­malis­es cy­ber­bul­ly­ing from the high­est lev­els of of­fice and sends a dan­ger­ous mes­sage that abuse is pow­er. Sad­ly, not once has this con­duct been con­demned by the lead­er­ship.

“Si­lence in the face of on­line abuse is com­plic­i­ty. Any lead­er­ship style that thrives on di­vi­sion, in­tim­i­da­tion, and ha­tred can­not unite a di­vid­ed coun­try, it on­ly deep­ens the frac­tures. A glance at the tox­ic dis­course on­line shows how far the dam­age has al­ready spread.”

But, for any­one spec­u­lat­ing that she’s be­come a sup­port­er of the PNM, she rub­bished that idea, say­ing peo­ple should not con­flate po­lit­i­cal ac­count­abil­i­ty with par­ti­san loy­al­ty.

She called that “a lazy po­lit­i­cal tac­tic.”

“Hold­ing the Gov­ern­ment to ac­count does not make you a sup­port­er of the PNM. Dis­miss­ing con­cerns by la­belling peo­ple as PNM is a cheap and lazy po­lit­i­cal tac­tic, meant to si­lence le­git­i­mate con­cerns.”

She al­so called on Op­po­si­tion leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les to put the coun­try be­fore pol­i­tics and work with the Gov­ern­ment to achieve re­form.

“Now, with a new leader at the helm of the Op­po­si­tion, we urge both par­ties to put coun­try be­fore pol­i­tics and work to­geth­er to achieve re­al re­form that strength­ens, not weak­ens, our democ­ra­cy. For the sake of our na­tion’s fu­ture, we must come to­geth­er to re­form the Con­sti­tu­tion,” Pan­day said.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves a sys­tem that tru­ly re­flects the will of the peo­ple and pro­tects the rights of all. Let us put coun­try be­fore par­ty and build a stronger, fair­er democ­ra­cy, one that our chil­dren can be proud of.”

Pan­day al­so con­demned re­cent dis­missals of work­ers.

“This trou­bling trend, com­bined with the wide­spread dis­missal of thou­sands of work­ers with­out re­gard for their liveli­hoods, paints a pic­ture of gov­er­nance with a heavy hand,” she said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to for­mer pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes for a com­ment on Pan­day’s con­cern about in­tim­i­da­tion of Kan­ga­loo and oth­er in­de­pen­dent bod­ies. How­ev­er, she de­clined to com­ment on the is­sue.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, for­mer pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona said he was un­able to com­ment at the time be­cause he was on busi­ness in the Unit­ed States.