Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is pre­dict­ing her par­ty will win the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, has called for those from oth­er po­lit­i­cal sides who are fed up with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to unite to fight them in a Na­tion­al Ac­cord Ini­tia­tive.

Speak­ing at last night’s “On the Bal­lot” vir­tu­al meet­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I put out a clar­i­on call to all and sundry from whichev­er po­lit­i­cal side who have be­come dis­heart­ened and dis­il­lu­sioned and even dis­gust­ed by the ar­ro­gance and ag­gres­sion of the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion, to be­come a part of the Na­tion­al Ac­cord Ini­tia­tive to heal and help re­store T&T.

“And to those who have once been a part of us, I say wel­come home. Now is the time to put aside our dif­fer­ences in the in­ter­est of our na­tion. Let us come to­geth­er to fight this wicked Row­ley Gov­ern­ment. There is room for every­one at the ta­ble and un­der our tent.”

She added, “Join the Na­tion­al Ac­cord Ini­tia­tive to heal and help. Don’t com­plain about the things you’re not will­ing to be­come part of to change! Now is the time... Let us be­come unit­ed to res­cue. We can do this to­geth­er.’’

On the eve of to­day’s Nom­i­na­tion Day ex­er­cise for all prospec­tive can­di­dates, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “I’m con­vinced the UNC will win (elec­tions) - I can see it, feel it and taste it. The en­tire coun­try has gone yel­low.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dou­bled down on at­tacks against Prime Min­is­ter and PNM leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, whom she dubbed the “blank” man. She list­ed a num­ber of per­ceived ills, ask­ing the pub­lic to fill in the “blank” on the name of the per­son re­spon­si­ble for them.

“What has ‘blank’ done for T&T in the last five years? What has blank done for you? Not a blank­ing thing!!! So if he blank­ing you, what will you do come Au­gust 10th? Blank him out of of­fice and let’s get T&T work­ing again,” she said.

She added, “I’m con­vinced the UNC will win - I can see it, feel it and taste it. The en­tire coun­try has gone yel­low.”

Per­sad-Biss­esar said the “blank man” al­so called her can­di­date team a kinder­garten team.

“But I pre­fer to have them than the geri­atric team you have,” she re­tort­ed.

She said the choice on Au­gust 10 was be­tween Row­ley and her­self. She ac­cused the PM of ar­ro­gance, “a strong man who feels he’s a dic­ta­tor.“

She al­so slammed Row­ley for what she de­scribed as leav­ing na­tion­als strand­ed over­seas af­ter clos­ing the bor­ders due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

“And on top of all of that he comes to say he will al­low crick­eters from all over to come in to play CPL, which now stands for Cit­i­zens Pre­ferred Last!” she said.

“We all like we crick­et but who would think it right to say you can’t take the chance to al­low cit­i­zens beg­ging to come home, some ba­bies, some old, some starv­ing, some with nowhere to live, some with­out mon­ey, some sep­a­rat­ed from their wives and hus­bands, some lit­tle chil­dren beg­ging to see their mum­my or dad­dy, some stu­dents who get kicked out, some beg­ging to at­tend fu­ner­als to say their last good­byes.

“But heart­less Row­ley could talk tough and could find it wise to bring in crick­eters from all over the world to play CPL. Shame on you Kei­th Row­ley!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so asked what will hap­pen to the oth­er 6,000 peo­ple out of the 10,000 who’d sought ex­emp­tions to re­turn home when on­ly 4,500 have so far re­ceived ex­emp­tions.

She al­so said the UNC would re­move the on­line pur­chase tax and halt the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty, low­er per­son­al, cor­po­rate and small busi­ness­es’ tax­es if it was re­turned to pow­er.