Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

A blood­less coup d’etat has oc­curred in T&T, with for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley anoint­ing his “Gar­ry Sobers” Stu­art Young as Prime Min­is­ter, says Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment at last night’s UNC meet­ing in La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, where a num­ber of gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­dates were pre­sent­ed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who greet­ed Jack Warn­er and hugged by Dr Sel­wyn Cud­joe, said she was late to the meet­ing as she had an ac­ci­dent on the way. But she said she was all right and the oth­ers in­volved in the ac­ci­dent were fine.

Slam­ming Young’s ap­point­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said he and Row­ley are “both sides of the same coin with the same failed promis­es…”

De­tail­ing what T&T had lost un­der the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), in­clud­ing the free­dom to trav­el to the UK visa-free, she added, “And (on Mon­day), you lost your democ­ra­cy - your right to choose your Prime Min­is­ter.

"Row­ley be­trayed PNM sup­port­ers - took away their right to se­lect their leader and took away the rights of all cit­i­zens to se­lect and elect their prime min­is­ter. This is called a blood­less coup - with­out a drop of blood shed, that’s what hap­pened un­der Row­ley anoint­ing his ‘Gar­ry Sobers - they’ve ex­er­cised a coup d’etat in T&T.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed T&T “was sold by Row­ley" to Young’s fam­i­ly fi­nanciers, aid­ed and abet­ted by 20 cow­ard­ly PNM MPs who al­lowed his coup d’etat to put an in­com­pe­tent min­is­ter as PM so they could keep "eat­ing ah food.”

“If these 20 PNM MPs can­not de­fend their own par­ty mem­bers, will they ever be able to de­fend you? Where are you Fos­ter Cum­mings? He put his tail be­tween his legs and said ‘yes mas­sa’ and signed the pa­per (to ap­point Young) ... I saw a la­dy who was in my law school class danc­ing more than the rest - eat ah food time.”

Ac­cus­ing Young of crit­i­cis­ing the UNC’s Ba­by Grant, she said a March 14, 2025, up­dat­ed let­ter from the Cab­i­net Sec­re­tari­at, re­spond­ing to a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion (FOIA) ap­pli­ca­tion from the OW­TU’s An­tho­ny Dop­son, showed Young re­cused him­self from Cab­i­net meet­ings 137 times and Faris Al-Rawi 83 times up to the end 2024.

She said they re­cused them­selves be­cause they had an in­ter­est in the busi­ness that the Cab­i­net was con­sid­er­ing.

“Young’s record shows he can­not even sit in a Cab­i­net meet­ing with­out hav­ing to ex­cuse him­self … al­most three years of meet­ings ... In our con­sti­tu­tion­al sys­tem of gov­ern­ment, we have no deputy PM – and a Cab­i­net is PM and AG – so who will chair the Cab­i­net when rec­om­men­da­tions to award mil­lions/bil­lions to Young’s fam­i­ly and friends is open on the cab­i­net ta­ble?" she asked.

“You think Young will leave the ta­ble? And if he leaves, will the Cab­i­net be prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed with­out Young, who is the un­elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter? And which Min­is­ter will dare vote against Young’s fam­i­ly and friends' in­ter­est?”

She said 137 re­cusals wasn’t to be tol­er­at­ed.

“What we’ve wit­nessed with the il­le­gal swear­ing-in of the un­elect­ed Young - with­out the man­date of the peo­ple through a gen­er­al elec­tion - is a bla­tant dis­re­gard for the Con­sti­tu­tion, as the PNM des­per­ate­ly scram­bles to hold on­to pow­er through de­cep­tion and ma­nip­u­la­tion," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“It’s a clear at­tempt to man­u­fac­ture the il­lu­sion of change in the hope cit­i­zens will for­get the last ten years of pain that Young was a ma­jor part of. The PNM is mere­ly reshuf­fling the same deck of fail­ures - and they have no trump - hop­ing to con­vince vot­ers to give them a chance to con­tin­ue their ter­ror and de­struc­tion of T&T.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar queried if At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Camille Robin­son-Reg­is could prac­tice. She said Robin­son-Reg­is, in 23 years in Par­lia­ment when 319 bills were brought, spoke on on­ly 54.

Of for­mer fi­nance min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, who was shift­ed to Pub­lic Util­i­ties, she said, “If he couldn’t pro­tect your mon­ey, he’d lose your wa­ter too.”

UNC leader tells PN­Mites come over

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so called for PNM sup­port­ers to join UNC’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests.

“You’ve stood by a PNM that’s tak­en your loy­al­ty for grant­ed for years and fed you emp­ty promis­es while they and their fi­nanciers pros­per. What about you and your chil­dren? You don’t have to be ‘PNM till yuh dead’. … Too many of your chil­dren have al­ready died and are suf­fer­ing un­der the PNM...” she said.

“Now is the time to say to PNM sup­port­ers - wake up, rise up, and leave PNM which has be­trayed you. They didn’t even give you a choice to se­lect your own leader in PNM. Row­ley’s aban­doned you. Young - the 137 times Re­cuser - is now be­ing forced up­on you … in all these years, have you ever heard Row­ley, Young or any cur­rent PNM MP tell PNM sup­port­ers they love them? Nev­er!”