The Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is ac­cus­ing the Gov­ern­ment of want­i­ng Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for Pres­i­dent so that she may grant Vin­cent Nel­son a pres­i­den­tial par­don.

"We are ask­ing the ques­tion to­day," Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said at the par­ty's me­dia con­fer­ence this morn­ing, "is it that the first or­der of busi­ness of Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo as­sum­ing she is the Pres­i­dent, is it her first or­der of busi­ness to grant a pres­i­den­tial par­don to Vin­cent Nel­son, clear­ing the way for the with­draw­al of that civ­il ac­tion against the Gov­ern­ment so they may re-charge Anand Ram­lo­gan and Ger­ald Ramdeen?"

In Oc­to­ber of 2022, the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard SC dis­con­tin­ued crim­i­nal charges against Ram­lo­gan and Ramdeen due to the re­fusal of British King's Coun­sel Vin­cent Nel­son to tes­ti­fy against the pair un­til the con­clu­sion of a re­lat­ed civ­il claim case he has against the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go. Nel­son is seek­ing to have the High Court award him mil­lions of dol­lars in dam­ages for the breach of an in­dem­ni­ty agree­ment with the Gov­ern­ment.

Mooni­lal be­lieves the pres­i­den­tial par­don will en­cour­age Nel­son to change his mind and give his tes­ti­mo­ny.

Mooni­lal said it is not by chance that Dr Kei­th Row­ley has strayed from the re­cent trend of nom­i­nat­ing peo­ple with­out di­rect po­lit­i­cal ties for Head of State.

"Why did Row­ley de­vi­ate? Why de­vi­ate from his own pol­i­cy for ap­point­ing a Pres­i­dent, it is not that per­sons ditched him or peo­ple of high stan­dards said no, I know of no one who will re­ject an of­fer to be­come Head of State."

The Oropouche East MP went on to say that his­to­ry has shown that Kan­ga­loo acts in the PNM's in­ter­est even when she filled in for Her Ex­cel­len­cy Paula Mae-Weekes. Mooni­lal sought to re­mind the pub­lic that it was Kan­ga­loo who signed the or­der for the dis­missal of Jwala Ram­ber­ran as Cen­tral Bank Gov­er­nor.