CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Fitzger­ald Hinds MP, has de­scribed the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) as "un­pa­tri­ot­ic", over its fail­ure to at­tend the in­au­gu­ra­tion of Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as Pres­i­dent of Trinidad and To­ba­go yes­ter­day.

In a post to his Face­book page this morn­ing Min­is­ter Hinds said:

"UNC = Class­less = De­struc­tive = Un­pa­tri­ot­ic and AB­SENT!"

The Min­is­ter de­scribed the tran­si­tion of pres­i­dents as “dig­ni­fied and smooth”, adding that the “con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty of the pres­i­den­cy was pre­served and strength­ened”.

Point­ing to yes­ter­day’s In­au­gu­ra­tion Cer­e­mo­ny for Her Ex­cel­len­cy, he ob­served:

"The PM, the Chief Jus­tice, the Speak­er and the Par­lia­ment, the TTDF—which she com­mands—and var­i­ous coun­try rep­re­sen­ta­tives were there. The peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go—in­clud­ing a co­hort of the na­tion’s school­child­ren—were there. But alas! The ma­raud­ers and trea­sury vul­tures were ab­sent. They don’t want noth­ing good."

The UNC has main­tained that they did not boy­cott the event, as­sert­ing that mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion were free to at­tend.

All mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion were in­vit­ed to the Cer­e­mo­ny.