Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ues to en­joy wide­spread sup­port and pop­u­lar­i­ty in the Siparia con­stituen­cy, even in the face of damn­ing al­le­ga­tions lev­elled against her by her for­mer al­ly In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty leader Jack Warn­er.

Warn­er is al­leg­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­gaged in cor­rup­tion, fraud and ex­tra-mar­i­tal re­la­tions. She has de­nied the al­le­ga­tions, in­stead telling sup­port­ers that she is fac­ing such at­tacks be­cause she is a woman.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Warn­er, who is now lead­ing the front­line at­tack on Per­sad-Bisses­sar, did all in his pow­er to de­fend her in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion. At that time, he went so far as to say she was be­ing at­tacked be­cause she was an In­di­an woman dar­ing to as­pire to prime min­is­te­r­i­al of­fice.

This year will mark 20 years for Per­sad-Bisses­sar as Siparia MP, and while she has a strong fol­low­ing she has faced ob­sta­cles and tribu­la­tions dur­ing her cur­rent tenure as MP.

In fact, last year she faced heat­ed protests from Coo­ra Branch Road res­i­dents who de­mand­ed bet­ter roads in their area. To­day, a far cry from those protests, Per­sad-Bisses­sar is rid­ing high among her con­stituents who, for the most part, are quite pleased with her rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

On Fri­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, with sup­port­ers in tow, de­liv­ered her nom­i­na­tion pa­pers at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, to con­test the Siparia seat. Many in Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­stituen­cy, which be­gins at Pati­ram Trace, Pe­nal, rat­ed her as do­ing well as an MP and Prime Min­is­ter, while oth­ers con­tend­ed she could have done bet­ter.

Re­bec­ca Small, of Sun­set Av­enue, Latchoos Road, Pe­nal, made it clear to the Sun­day Guardian she was not hap­py with the treat­ment her com­mu­ni­ty re­ceived from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She com­plained that for years res­i­dents on her street had been clam­our­ing for wa­ter and bet­ter roads yet their pleas had gone unan­swered.

"There are cer­tain places that get things. I live Sun­set Av­enue and imag­ine in this day and age we do not have wa­ter, we do not get wa­ter in Latchoos Road. We ap­ply for wa­ter and I do not know why we not get­ting it," she said.

Small said she had been liv­ing in Sun­set Av­enue for al­most 40 years and she was dis­sat­is­fied with Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

"I feel she could be more for her con­stituents. Some ar­eas have every­thing but where I live even the road is ne­glect­ed al­so. It has not been paved and we need some box drains al­so. In­side there is some­thing else," she said.

Six­ty-two-year-old Pe­nal Rock Road res­i­dent Bren­da Rooplal's hap­pi­ness was in­verse­ly pro­por­tion­al to Small's un­hap­pi­ness.

Rooplal, who sells in the Pe­nal mar­ket, said she had no com­plaints about Per­sad-Bisses­sar's rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

"I am sat­is­fied with her. In the past gov­ern­ment they nev­er do noth­ing and, I mean to say, she show she work in the five years that she was there. She still per­form she du­ties. She did the work she had to do. Of course, she de­serve a sec­ond term."

Rooplal said she stood con­fi­dent­ly be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar and be­lieved she would rise suc­cess­ful­ly above her de­trac­tors.

"Ac­cord­ing to the say­ing, when it comes to elec­tion some­body al­ways try­ing to bring she down. Re­mem­ber Ramesh; Pan­day try to bring she down; Man­ning try it; but she stood up. So she will come through, I have con­fi­dence in she. She will weath­er the storm, she will stand up and we will stand be­hind she," Rooplal said.

She was joined by fel­low mar­ket ven­dor Es­ther Coutain, of San­ta Flo­ra, who like­wise ex­pressed sat­is­fac­tion with Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

"I find she do enough, she do plen­ty. But at the end of the day you know things does hap­pen, peo­ple does fall short but, she did what she had to do and she was very good. In the late half yes, in the ear­ly it was a lit­tle (us­ing the so-so ges­ture)," she said.

Coutain said she be­lieved Warn­er's rev­e­la­tions would have no im­pact on Per­sad-Bisses­sar's re-elec­tion, but she was a lit­tle more guard­ed in her com­ments on the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's chances of re-elec­tion.

"Who is for her will be for her. So Jack could bump he gum and say what he want, but at the end of the day, Kam­la will al­ways be Kam­la. Some peo­ple will look at her dif­fer­ent­ly, a lot look at her dif­fer­ent. You can­not get away from that, every­body is not the same.

"I alone can­not an­swer that ques­tion (about re-elec­tion). I still can­not say. I am wait­ing for the last view­point. I still can­not say; we still have some months," she said.

An­oth­er man, who said he was un­hap­py with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­clined to go on record or give his name.

"I don't get in­volved in pol­i­tics," he said.

It was clear that the Siparia con­stituen­cy has un­der­gone de­vel­op­ment in the last five years.

Well-paved roads, some com­plete with round­abouts, as well as spank­ing new bridges and build­ings, things which res­i­dents had longed for over the years, ap­peared to be the or­der of the day for the south Trinidad con­stituen­cy.

For Haitram Ma­habir, 42, of Wil­son Road, Pe­nal, the de­vel­op­ment in his area was most wel­come.

Ma­habir chat­ted with the Sun­day Guardian as he sat on a step wait­ing for a taxi next to the pop­u­lar Wil­son Road Recre­ation Ground, Pe­nal, a place fre­quent­ed by West In­dies crick­eters in­clud­ing Samuel Badree and for­mer T&T cap­tain Dar­ren Gan­ga. He said he was pleased with his MP and the PP.

He con­fi­dent­ly said he dis­be­lieved Warn­er's al­le­ga­tions that mar­i­jua­na was found at Per­sad-Bisses­sar's pri­vate res­i­dence in Philip­pine, San Fer­nan­do, in 2013.

"I feel she need to stay right where she is, 'cause she do­ing re­al good. She do­ing bet­ter than all them prime min­is­ters who was there be­fore and Jack Warn­er need to stay right where he is too. Plen­ty peo­ple say­ing that they don't be­lieve him and I do not be­lieve that she had any gan­ja in her house," he said.

Sto­ries of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's benev­o­lence could be heard through­out the Siparia con­stituen­cy, but for house­wife Gan­gadai Per­sad the prime min­is­ter's in­ter­ven­tion was life-chang­ing.

Five years ago, the 53-year-old woman, of Dig­i­ty Branch Trace, Pe­nal, lost her home in a fire and she was wor­ried how her fam­i­ly would sur­vive.

How­ev­er, she said, the Prime Min­is­ter's in­ter­ven­tion en­sured that she had a roof over her head.

Per­sad, who broke off from wash­ing her clothes to speak to the Sun­day Guardian, took a seat in a ham­mock and in no un­cer­tain terms ex­pressed how she felt about Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

"She did well...bet­ter than any­one. It have noth­ing that you go to she for and she say she can­not help you. She does help. I am very hap­py with her per­for­mance.

"I feel that (Warn­er's at­tacks) is re­al non­sense, be­cause all the time they were one. Why now, af­ter they pull apart, this hap­pen? It is re­al­ly, re­al­ly ridicu­lous. Know­ing that he do­ing this what he leave for lit­tle chil­dren to think about? It is very, very un­fair," Per­sad said, shak­ing her head as she rocked in the ham­mock.

The house­wife sent a strong mes­sage to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, "Keep your head high up, pray to God and every­thing will go on its course."

She said Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­ways did good and "it does not have a thing that some­body say they want she did not help."

Ram­rat­tan Bas­deo, 59, of Pati­ram Trace, who was busi­ly re­pair­ing his car along the road­way at Old San Fer­nan­do Street, Pe­nal, said since the PP came to pow­er, "I find a lot of im­prove­ment, not on­ly in the vil­lage, but through­out the is­land 'cause I does trav­el a lot through work and she does still do she work and even more. I say she should re­main strong, I feel Jack giv­ing she too much op­po­si­tion re­cent­ly. It is un­fair to her."

It seems that Warn­er's re­lent­less at­tacks have not on­ly irked Siparia con­stituents, but made their re­solve to ral­ly around the Prime Min­is­ter stronger.

Di­a­bet­ic pa­tient Prutema Um­raw, 57, of Pati­ram Trace, Pe­nal, said she was firm­ly be­hind the Siparia MP, but be­cause of her med­ical con­di­tion she could not stand for long pe­ri­ods or be out in the cold so she could not at­tend po­lit­i­cal meet­ings to show her sup­port.

How­ev­er, she was whole­heart­ed­ly back­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

She com­mend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter for her so­cial ser­vices pro­grammes, which she said had helped many like her­self.

"I get a dis­abil­i­ty grant. I have uric acid in my body, and my hands and foot does swell and I does be in pain and I can­not move. I am a di­a­bet­ic and pres­sure case and [the grant helps] with the cost of liv­ing. She is do­ing a very good thing for the coun­try, I would not just say for Pe­nal, but for the whole coun­try she is work­ing for," she said.

Um­raw, who shak­i­ly stood in her flower gar­den pluck­ing flow­ers, said one of the things she ad­mired about her MP was her de­cen­cy. She re­count­ed how Per­sad-Bisses­sar at­tend­ed a Hin­du wed­ding farewell in the vil­lage and in­ter­act­ed with the peo­ple hired to wash dish­es.

"All what they say­ing about her is not nice, re­gard­less if it is true or lie, I do not think that they should be do­ing these things. I do not think she could do these things. When I look at her, I think she is a de­cent per­son," Um­raw said.

Her hus­band Ram­c­hand, 62, was vo­cal and un­for­giv­ing in his feel­ings to­wards Warn­er. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar nev­er al­lowed con­stituents to feel she was ab­sent.

"She con­tin­ued work­ing and do­ing things for the con­stituen­cy, which is very good. She was an ex­cel­lent MP, now and be­fore. Those at­tacks are just mal­ice, jeal­ousy and en­vy and they want to sink the woman for noth­ing," he said.

Re­tiree Patrick Layne, 73, of Latchoos Road, ex­pressed frus­tra­tion over Warn­er's at­tacks as he came to his MP's de­fence. The el­der­ly man, who was wait­ing for a taxi in Pe­nal, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar should get a sec­ond chance.

An an­noyed Layne de­mand­ed an­swers, as he called for the "non­sense" to stop.

"That al­le­ga­tions have no proof, you find that have proof in it? I do not think that have proof in it. He un­fair. I do not think it will re­al­ly af­fect she, that can­not bring she down. I have con­fi­dence in the Prime Min­is­ter and her chances," Layne de­clared.

One woman, who on­ly gave her name as Mary, of Clarke Road, Pe­nal, said she loved what Per­sad-Bisses­sar was do­ing for the coun­try, fix­ing all the roads and fix­ing the med­ical care.

"It is get­ting bet­ter. Hope­ful­ly, she will win the elec­tion and get back. I have no com­ment to make on those al­le­ga­tions," she said.

Vanes­sa Gookool, 30, of Wil­son Road, Pe­nal, plead­ed with Warn­er to end his war with Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

"When he was in pow­er he nev­er do noth­ing for any­one. Kam­la do­ing every­thing. I think he should stop and give her a chance to keep do­ing what she do­ing for the peo­ple. I feel she will still win the elec­tions. I do not think any­thing will come out of that (al­le­ga­tions), it will not af­fect our (T&T's) im­age neg­a­tive­ly," Gookool said.