RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has called for a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to a so­cial me­dia post show­ing a gun tar­get at the heart of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The 12-sec­ond video is cap­tioned, “Load the ‘mat­ic and emp­ty the clip on them on Au­gust 14”.  Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions will be held on Au­gust 14.

In the video, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­pears in a box on the top-left of the screen on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form say­ing: “We have to load up this ‘mat­ic! We have to pull it back, you have to lock it again, then lock it again…”

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the UNC “cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­demned” the so­cial me­dia video which the par­ty said “sug­gests that vi­o­lence be com­mit­ted against Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley.”

The state­ment con­tin­ued: “We al­so con­demn and com­plete­ly dis­so­ci­ate our­selves from the unau­tho­rised use of Op­po­si­tion Leader Hon. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s voice in that video.”

The par­ty said it is com­mit­ted to peace­ful, free and fair de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pol­i­tics, free from fear and called for an “im­me­di­ate po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the said so­cial me­dia video, to find out who is be­hind this mis­chief and to press the rel­e­vant charges against the of­fend­er(s) at once.”

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) al­so re­leased a state­ment “con­demn­ing in the strongest way” the video which shows a gun with the sound of bul­lets be­ing fired, and the Prime Min­is­ter with a tar­get on his chest.

Po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith, said: “As a po­lit­i­cal leader my­self, I un­der­stand the strong emo­tions and pas­sion that aris­es at elec­tion time, but this is un­ac­cept­able and can be seen as in­cit­ing vi­o­lence.”

The par­ty is­sued a call for per­sons to im­me­di­ate­ly stop shar­ing or pro­duc­ing such videos, and to re­frain from sim­i­lar themes when mak­ing memes or do­ing posts and mak­ing com­ments.

“The NTA al­so wants to re­it­er­ate that we see those from oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties as po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents—nev­er po­lit­i­cal en­e­mies—and we strong­ly urge oth­ers to do the same,” Grif­fith said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader has come un­der fire for her “emp­ty the clip” com­ments.  

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour said in its re­view of the UNC leader’s com­ments that they were in­ap­pro­pri­ate and in­sen­si­tive, and a breach of the code of po­lit­i­cal con­duct.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj ob­served: “This is per­haps a very ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ment to be made by a for­mer prime min­is­ter. As you are aware, there are a lot of emo­tions when it comes to crim­i­nal­i­ty and pro­tect­ing fam­i­lies in our so­ci­ety. There­fore, care­less state­ments like this will not au­gur well for the un­de­cid­ed vot­er.”