DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Tabaquite MP and shad­ow ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne yes­ter­day urged the pub­lic to care­ful­ly eval­u­ate the rhetoric used by some politi­cians in the af­ter­math of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s trag­ic death, sug­gest­ing it should in­flu­ence how they vote in the fu­ture.

Haynes-Al­leyne made the state­ment af­ter sign­ing the con­do­lence book for the late D’Abadie/O’Meara MP, who per­ished with two of her chil­dren in a house fire on Mon­day.

The sign­ing, held in the Ro­tun­da of Par­lia­ment, saw Haynes-Al­leyne ac­com­pa­nied by one per­son. She was the sole mem­ber of her par­ty present and was greet­ed warm­ly by Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde, who em­braced her.

This scene stood in stark con­trast to the pre­vi­ous day when the Op­po­si­tion Leader was ac­com­pa­nied by a group of 20 UNC MPs, sen­a­tors, and par­ty mem­bers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment, Haynes-Al­leyne con­demned the re­marks made by PEP leader Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, who in­sult­ed Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is in the wake of the tragedy.

Alexan­der had ac­cused Robin­son-Reg­is of hypocrisy for pub­licly mourn­ing Mor­ris-Ju­lian while, ac­cord­ing to him, ne­glect­ing oth­er na­tion­al is­sues.

How­ev­er, Haynes-Al­leyne strong­ly crit­i­cised these com­ments as un­be­com­ing and in­sen­si­tive, re­mind­ing the pub­lic that Mor­ris-Ju­lian left be­hind griev­ing loved ones.

“I would urge per­sons to re­mem­ber that Mrs Mor­ris-Ju­lian has a fam­i­ly. There are sur­viv­ing chil­dren. She lost her life with two of her chil­dren, and that should take prece­dence.”

She em­pha­sised that the UNC lead­er­ship should align with in­di­vid­u­als who share the par­ty’s core val­ues, rather than fo­cus­ing sole­ly on elec­toral vic­to­ries.

“What you have to be look­ing to­wards is whether or not per­sons are align­ing them­selves in a way that will seek the in­ter­est of a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go and not seek the in­ter­est of a vic­to­ry on a par­tic­u­lar night.”

When asked if Per­sad-Bisses­sar should rep­ri­mand Alexan­der, giv­en that his re­marks could re­flect poor­ly on the UNC due to their bud­ding al­liance, Haynes-Al­leyne of­fered ad­vice for both the po­lit­i­cal leader and the elec­torate.

“Per­sons who in­tend to seek po­lit­i­cal of­fice have a du­ty to cre­ate the type of pol­i­tics you hope to see in the fu­ture, and Trinidad and To­ba­go has to look on.”

Haynes-Al­leyne was brand­ed one of five dis­si­dents by Per­sad-Biss­esar af­ter they called for in­ter­nal elec­tions to be held with­in the UNC.