Kamla Persad-Bissessar has launched a counter-attack against UNC leader Basdeo Panday as the fight for control of the UNC heats up. Speaking at a meeting in Aranguez on Monday night, Persad-Bissessar was critical of Panday who, she said lead the UNC to three election defeats since 2001. She said: "We are up against decades of bitterness, spite and hate that causes politicians to demonise their opponents instead of coming together to correct the ills of this country, to unite the people to defeat the anti-people PNM. "That kind of politics is bad for the UNC as a party and bad for the country," Persad-Bissessar said.
She added that the UNC's internal election was being treated as a war and the use of "dirty weapons" appeared to be promising. Last week, Panday said Persad-Bissessar would be unfit to lead the UNC because of her "weakness," which made her vulnerable. "We are up against the idea of a group of persons who think that it is acceptable to say anything and do anything to win an election," Persad-Bissessar said. She also made indirect reference's to Panday's mishandling the issues of the Caroni workers in 2003, which allowed the PNM "to send home 10,000 workers and dramatically affect the lives of 40,000-plus dependants, causing a gloom to descend" over Central Trinidad and other areas of the UNC base of support.
Persad-Bissessar charged that the politics of her opponents said "nothing of the fact that since 2000 you have lost (two general) elections in 2001, 2007 and a local election in 2003," which reduced the number of regional corporations the UNC controlled. She told more than 200 supporters at the meeting at Prakash Tyre Shop, along the Aranguez Main Road, her opponents failed to make references to the loss of 100,000 voters who "turned their backs away from the UNC in 2007" and joined another political party–the COP.
She also pointed out that no reference was being made to the declining number of seats the UNC held in the House of Representatives, which has been dropping since 2000, from 20 to 15. "While my opponents spend their time in developing strategies to demonise and denigrate me, I want to use my time to develop strategies and programmes, and take action to positively affect the hopelessness I see," Persad-Bissessar said. She asked: "Is their participation of the public denigration of a woman how they treat their wives and daughters? "Are these the people we want as our leaders? What morality would they bring to national life?"