Shas­tri Boodan

T&T must nev­er go back to the days of the "old cor­rupt, ar­ro­gant, self-serv­ing pol­i­tics of the past," says Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She was ad­dress­ing a mas­sive crowd of par­ty sup­port­ers cel­e­brat­ing the UNC's 11 to three vic­to­ry in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion on Mon­day. Speak­ing af­ter mid­night, she told the gath­er­ing at the Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, that no politi­cian would ever take the elec­torate for grant­ed again. A ju­bi­lant Per­sad-Bisses­sar opened by singing the Bryan Adams' clas­sic, "Every­thing I Do I Do For You". She made it clear that the politi­cians were the ser­vants of the peo­ple. She said: "No par­ty will ever sur­vive the nar­cis­sism and self-glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of its lead­ers where vot­ers are told to vote for us sim­ply be­cause they have al­ways done so."

She said par­ty cards and sym­bols were no longer en­trance pass­es to any ben­e­fit of the state. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she looked for­ward to the day when PN­Mites would dis­pose of their bal­isi­er ties. "I see mem­bers of the op­po­site side, in or out of of­fice, dis­pens­ing with this ob­scene dis­play of par­ti­san­ship by wear­ing par­ty sym­bols on their at­tire in Par­lia­ment and at of­fi­cial func­tions of the state," she added. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the PP rep­re­sent­ed every­one and used the na­tion­al flag as its sym­bol. She called on Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley and his sup­port­ers to work for the bet­ter­ment of T&T. She said no one nor any area in T&T would be ne­glect­ed be­cause of the way they vot­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would hold every mem­ber of her Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able.

She added: "I will de­mand noth­ing less than to­tal in­tegri­ty. I will be in­tol­er­ant of par­ti­san­ship and spe­cial favours and I will ex­pect and ac­cept no ex­cus­es for a job that is not per­formed by any­one." She said the PP was about to em­bark on a whole new way of do­ing things. Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er said the PP was now set­ting its eyes on cap­tur­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly when that elec­tion was called. He said the To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion for the Peo­ple (TOP) would take the reigns of pow­er on the sis­ter isle. Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh said he was over­joyed to see the PNM lose the Cal­i­for­nia/Point Lisas seat on the Cou­va/Tabaquite/Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. This seat was won by Chris­tine Soo­bram. In­dars­ingh said Soo­bram put up a good fight against the PNM and in­de­pen­dent can­di­date Ra­jen­dra Go­sine.