Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the par­ty’s lawyers will sup­port To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly chief sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and To­bag­o­ni­ans in the courts and will al­so sup­port them in Par­lia­ment and on plat­forms.

While Jack Warn­er has promised to work to earn his place in the UNC and then dis­band his In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) to rein­te­grate it in­to UNC.

 Both re­vealed this when they spoke at the UNC’s “Ac­com­mo­da­tion 2023” Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions meet­ing at a packed Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, last night when Warn­er was pre­sent­ed along with Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith. The three have joined forces to fight the PNM in the Au­gust 14 elec­tions.

The high-en­er­gy event fea­tured flag-wav­ing, horn-toot­ing UNC and NTA sup­port­ers well be­yond the 950 chairs avail­able. Can­di­dates for sev­er­al ar­eas were pre­sent­ed.

The meet­ing brought to­geth­er the for­mer PP Gov­ern­ment front­lin­ers in Warn­er’s first ap­pear­ance on a po­lit­i­cal plat­form with the UNC and Grif­fith since his days as a PP min­is­ter. He re­signed in 2013 af­ter FI­FA is­sues and had not spo­ken to Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­til ap­pear­ing with her at a Feb­ru­ary Car­ni­val fete.

Warn­er, dressed in a yel­low shirt, told the cheer­ing crowd, “This kind of greet­ing, I’m ask­ing my­self why wasn’t I here be­fore. But as the Good Book states, noth­ing hap­pens be­fore its time.

“I’m here by choice as it’s time to ac­cept the wish and choice of our po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to come to­geth­er to fight the com­mon en­e­my—PNM!”

Warn­er said he did not want to wear a yel­low shirt with UNC mono­grammed un­til he had earned the right to do so. De­cry­ing “fence sit­ters”, he said he came to work with the UNC and NTA and when he earned his dues, he would call an emer­gency meet­ing of ILP and dis­band it, “Be­cause the ILP has to be for­mal­ly rein­te­grat­ed with the UNC, we are one fam­i­ly!”

A section of UNC supporters wave flags during the party’s “Accommodation 2023” Local Government meeting at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya, last night.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Stat­ing crime and un­em­ploy­ment are high, Warn­er added, “We have among us the best CoP T&T has ever seen—Gary Grif­fith and the best works min­is­ter and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter ever seen. With Gary, my­self, and the best prime min­is­ter, you have no cause to fear!”

Warn­er called Per­sad-Bisses­sar “the Man­dela of T&T pol­i­tics” by hav­ing him at the meet­ing. He told the crowd, “On Au­gust 14, there must be no tie, no po­lit­i­cal su­per over or 7-7! Let’s achieve out­right vic­to­ry in every cor­po­ra­tion!”

 He al­so slammed Min­is­ters Stu­art Young and Mar­vin Gon­za­les, and ac­tivist Juli­et Davy.

‘Reign of ter­ror in To­ba­go’

Grif­fith in blue, did not speak. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, sport­ing a green, yel­low, and blue dress, said she was of­fer­ing Warn­er the UNC lo­go im­me­di­ate­ly. She said he had not asked for any­thing for him­self or ILP.

 She queried why Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher have not sur­ren­dered their de­vices in the re­cent is­sue of al­le­ga­tions by THA’s Au­gus­tine.

Al­leg­ing the TTPS hi­er­ar­chy has be­gun “a reign of ter­ror in To­ba­go un­der the guise of in­ves­ti­gat­ing au­dio clips”, she claimed se­nior po­lice in­formed her that the Gov­ern­ment is us­ing some of­fi­cers “to con­fis­cate sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion that the THA has against a To­ba­go com­pa­ny in or­der to bury it”, and cur­rent/for­mer THA of­fi­cials’ elec­tron­ic de­vices are be­ing seized to find any in­for­ma­tion on the own­er’s op­er­a­tions un­der the for­mer PNM-led THA.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned non-in­ves­ti­ga­tions of oth­er al­leged wit­ness-tam­per­ing, warn­ing when the UNC be­comes Gov­ern­ment it will probe is­sues.

She added, “Tonight, I tell Far­ley and oth­er mem­bers of the THA to stand strong. This is a PNM and TTPS at­tack not on­ly on Far­ley but an at­tack on the peo­ple of To­ba­go. The UNC un­equiv­o­cal­ly states to the dic­ta­tor and the PNM hi­er­ar­chy of the TTPS, you touch one, you touch all! Our lawyers will sup­port in the courts, and we will sup­port in Par­lia­ment and the plat­forms”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called on TTPS to in­ves­ti­gate al­leged po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion by two PNM can­di­dates in the LGE cam­paign: “State-fund­ed grants used as bribes in ex­change for votes in the LGE ... pure cor­rup­tion, mis­con­duct!” she claimed.  

ILP founder Jack Warner, left, UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and NTA leader Gary Griffith sit together at the UNC’s “Accommodation 2023” Local Government meeting at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya, last night.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

PNM mocks LGE con­tenders in ‘flip flop’ broad­cast

Mean­while, min­utes be­fore the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) be­gan its joint po­lit­i­cal meet­ing fea­tur­ing Jack Warn­er and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith at Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence last night, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) an­nounced it will be air­ing a very spe­cial cam­paign broad­cast.

The cam­paign broad­cast re­placed its pub­lic meet­ing yes­ter­day.

En­ti­tled Flip Flops, the cam­paign video fea­tured sev­er­al short clips of sound­bites mock­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) Po­lit­i­cal Leader Phillip Alexan­der and Grif­fith.

One clip in­clud­ed Grif­fith say­ing, “I have worked with four prime min­is­ters as the right hand, Patrick Man­ning, Bas­deo Pan­day, Kei­th Row­ley and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and she is in­deed the hard­est work­ing prime min­is­ter,” while the back­ground mu­sic played “Yuh hear lie, that is lie”.

Soca artiste Iwer George with ILP founder Jack Warner during the UNC’s Local Government meeting at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya, last night.

ABRAHAM DIAZ