Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

“Not so at all, Madame Pres­i­dent.”

That’s the re­but­tal from Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy lead­ers, of­fi­cials and Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters who yes­ter­day rub­bished Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s push-back against crit­ics of the im­par­tial­i­ty of her Sen­ate ap­point­ments and her po­lit­i­cal past.

Kan­ga­loo on Tues­day sug­gest­ed that gen­der bias un­der­lies some of the com­men­tary.

The Pres­i­dent broke her si­lence on the is­sue which en­sued fol­low­ing the UNC’s June 29 me­dia brief­ing re­gard­ing In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ap­point­ed by her.

UNC PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo and Min­is­ters Bar­ry Padarath and Sad­dam Ho­sein called out the In­de­pen­dents, whom they la­belled as “the Pres­i­dent’s sen­a­tors,” to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment’s bill to change the method by which a prime min­is­ter ac­cess­es pen­sion. Meighoo dou­bled down af­ter Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s warn­ing against bul­ly­ing of mem­bers and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira’s threat of fur­ther ac­tion.

Af­ter the Law As­so­ci­a­tion (LATT) de­fend­ed the In­de­pen­dents, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Meighoo slammed the as­so­ci­a­tion, cit­ing the Pres­i­dent’s ap­point­ment of In­de­pen­dents. Kan­ga­loo spoke the next day.

Yes­ter­day, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, a UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, said, “I’ve tak­en note of the Pres­i­dent’s com­ments. I’m not aware that the Pres­i­dent has been a tar­get. I am aware that se­ri­ous con­cerns have been raised re­gard­ing her judge­ment in the ap­point­ment of par­ti­san sen­a­tors and oth­er mat­ters. Con­cerns that have been raised for some time now pri­or to April 28.”

Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John said all sen­a­tors are crea­tures of pol­i­tics, as a gen­er­al elec­tion is the cat­a­lyst for ap­point­ing the three clas­si­fi­ca­tions.

“In the Con­sti­tu­tion, there is no group of Sen­a­tors re­ferred to as ‘In­de­pen­dent’. Not those ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent or any­one. Ref­er­enc­ing a prac­tice over time doesn’t make any­one ‘In­de­pen­dent’. I’ve been ap­point­ed Sen­a­tor on at least four oc­ca­sions and in re­cent times, I have had grave con­cerns and doubts about the clear bias, dis­dain and dis­re­gard dis­played to­wards the then-Op­po­si­tion UNC by so-called ‘In­de­pen­dent’ Sen­a­tors.”

Meighoo said it was non­sen­si­cal for Kan­ga­loo to in­fer the UNC was crit­i­cis­ing her be­cause she’s a woman.

“She may want to play the vic­tim card, but that’s not what it’s about...it’s not be­cause she’s a woman. We’re not pick­ing on her, we’re analysing and look­ing at vot­ing records (of the In­de­pen­dents). We’d crit­i­cised them for that,” he said.

“Our leader - now twice Prime Min­is­ter- is a woman of many firsts as a fe­male: At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, leader of a ma­jor po­lit­i­cal par­ty, Op­po­si­tion Leader. In UNC’s up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions, I’m pos­i­tive she’ll be re-elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader.”

Meighoo added, “So, we weren’t at­tack­ing the Pres­i­dent, we were re­fer­ring to the facts of po­lit­i­cal align­ment and how much she’s em­bed­ded. No pres­i­dent has been so aligned to one po­lit­i­cal par­ty like that: her fa­ther a PNM may­or of San Fer­nan­do, her hus­band ob­tained State briefs, her in-laws, the Gar­cia clan - su­per tech­nocrats.”

Meighoo, cit­ing his work on con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, said by shin­ing a light on is­sues, “the veil on In­de­pen­dents was re­moved, peo­ple were more con­scious and per­haps (In­de­pen­dents) too may be more self-con­scious.”

“That may be good, they’re wield­ing in­cred­i­ble pow­er,” he said.

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Padarath added, “Con­cerns were raised pri­or to Kan­ga­loo’s ap­point­ment as Pres­i­dent about her be­ing an ac­tive politi­cian. For many years she ex­pressed very strong PNM ide­ol­o­gy and even promised to spread the ‘PNM gospel’ wher­ev­er she goes.

“The Pres­i­dent isn’t be­ing fair to her crit­ics. It has noth­ing to do with her gen­der at all - it has every­thing to do with her pol­i­tics. I en­cour­age her to re­flect on her ut­ter­ances and ac­tions and how they rec­on­cile with each oth­er. Pol­i­tics is not a tea par­ty. The Pres­i­dent is no sa­cred cow. When you de­scend in­to the po­lit­i­cal gayelle di­rect­ly or through agents, you’ll be called out on it.”

Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Dar­ryl Al­la­har said, “Every­one in­clud­ing Her Ex­cel­len­cy is en­ti­tled to their own opin­ion.”