DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has pushed back against Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing she has no moral au­thor­i­ty to ad­vise her on in­ter­nal par­ty mat­ters, as she de­fend­ed her de­ci­sion to stage a walk­out from Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

In a state­ment, Beck­les said she would not be pres­sured in­to mak­ing a de­ci­sion re­gard­ing Sen­a­tor Janelle John-Bates, who ten­dered her res­ig­na­tion af­ter ad­mit­ting to edit­ing a wit­ness state­ment pre­pared by for­mer health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh.

The al­tered state­ment had been sub­mit­ted to the Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Ap­pro­pri­a­tions Com­mit­tee (PAAC), which has been ex­am­in­ing the State’s ac­qui­si­tion of phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals amid al­le­ga­tions of nepo­tism linked to the grant­i­ng of spe­cial im­port per­mits dur­ing Deyals­ingh’s tenure.

The mat­ter has since es­ca­lat­ed in­to a po­lit­i­cal flash­point, with gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ac­cus­ing Beck­les of fail­ing to act de­ci­sive­ly against John-Bates and Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi, who was al­so in­volved in edit­ing the doc­u­ment.

Beck­les, how­ev­er, in­sist­ed that de­ci­sions on Op­po­si­tion rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment rest sole­ly with her, while ac­cus­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar of hypocrisy.

“Kam­la, you are quite alone in your piti­ful cir­cum­stances. I am cer­tain­ly not in your shoes. As po­lit­i­cal leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, I will make de­ci­sions about our rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment, guid­ed by my com­mit­ment to due process.

“I will not be bul­lied or di­rect­ed in these mat­ters, nor will I al­low a Gov­ern­ment on whose bench­es sit per­sons on bail, per­sons who open­ly bran­dish false qual­i­fi­ca­tions, per­sons who are be­fore the courts on var­i­ous mat­ters, and per­sons who en­gage in the most dis­gust­ing and ob­scene be­hav­iour on so­cial me­dia, to de­cide how the Op­po­si­tion must dis­ci­pline or de­ploy its mem­bers,” she said.

She dis­missed the Prime Min­is­ter’s crit­i­cism, in­clud­ing claims that Al-Rawi is “un­touch­able” due to elite back­ing, as un­found­ed.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s child­ish tantrums, ac­com­pa­nied by wild and spu­ri­ous ac­cu­sa­tions that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is con­trolled by fi­nanciers and elites, are em­bar­rass­ing and sim­ply re­veal her des­per­a­tion as some­one who has run out of facts and, there­fore, re­sorts to fic­tion,” Beck­les added.

She al­so de­fend­ed the Op­po­si­tion’s walk­out from the Low­er House, de­scrib­ing it as a re­sponse to pro­ce­dur­al breach­es.

“The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has al­ready made its po­si­tion clear. Our de­ci­sion to walk out of Par­lia­ment was a prin­ci­pled stand against a Gov­ern­ment that abused its par­lia­men­tary ma­jor­i­ty, ig­nored Stand­ing Or­ders, and al­lowed pro­ceed­ings to de­scend in­to dis­or­der and the­atrics,” she said.

Beck­les fur­ther crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ab­sence from Fri­day’s sit­ting.

“She was ab­sent from the Cham­ber on Fri­day, ab­sent from the de­bate, and ab­sent from the facts.

“If the Prime Min­is­ter in­tends to lec­ture on par­lia­men­tary con­duct, she should first en­sure her con­sis­tent pres­ence in the Cham­ber to at­tend to the peo­ple’s busi­ness and un­der­stand the is­sues first­hand.”

She al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of se­lec­tive out­rage, cit­ing what she de­scribed as se­ri­ous pro­ce­dur­al breach­es out­lined in a mi­nor­i­ty re­port by Arou­ca/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, a mem­ber of the PAAC.

These in­clud­ed the al­leged leak of in­for­ma­tion to the me­dia re­gard­ing the con­tro­ver­sy, af­ter track changes were iden­ti­fied in the doc­u­ment de­spite the com­mit­tee meet­ing be­ing held in cam­era.

“These breach­es are as crit­i­cal as every oth­er breach and must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed with equal vigour,” Beck­les said.

“The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment will not be in­tim­i­dat­ed. We will con­tin­ue to act re­spon­si­bly, up­hold due process and de­fend the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

An­a­lysts ques­tion de­lay

Even as Beck­les de­fend­ed her po­si­tion, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are ques­tion­ing whether her re­sponse re­flects cau­tion or hes­i­ta­tion.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tists Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath and Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad sug­gest­ed the Op­po­si­tion Leader has been slow to act on what they de­scribe as an in­evitable de­ci­sion re­gard­ing John-Bates’ res­ig­na­tion.

An­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James, how­ev­er, urged re­straint, ar­gu­ing that any re­sponse should be mea­sured giv­en that John-Bates has apol­o­gised.

“It should not be tol­er­at­ed. But it’s not every­thing you ap­ply cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment to. She went so far as to apol­o­gise. She should not have done what she did, but I think it’s the se­nior peo­ple like Faris Al-Rawi and Ter­rence Deyals­ingh who should have guid­ed her away from that kind of way­ward­ness,” he said.

In con­trast, Ram­per­sad said the sit­u­a­tion re­quired ur­gency, point­ing to past lead­er­ship de­ci­sions as a bench­mark for de­ci­sive ac­tion.

“It is wor­ry­ing. It is dis­turb­ing that the Op­po­si­tion Leader is hes­i­tat­ing on this, which re­quires ur­gent at­ten­tion and an ur­gent de­ci­sion. Pen­ny needs to show some co­jones like Kam­la. Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked a num­ber of min­is­ters to re­sign for mis­con­duct. That made her look like a strong leader,” she said.

She sug­gest­ed that re­mov­ing John-Bates, while tak­ing a dif­fer­ent ap­proach with Al-Rawi, could help sta­bilise the Op­po­si­tion’s im­age.

Ra­goonath warned that con­tin­ued de­lay could car­ry po­lit­i­cal con­se­quences.

“It comes across as in­de­ci­sive, and this fol­lows the call made with re­gard to Bal­li­ram Ma­haraj and the fail­ure yet to act in that case. If you don’t make a de­ci­sion on the John-Bates mat­ter, or you say you will not be bul­lied, it re­flects bad­ly on your par­ty. It sug­gests you are em­brac­ing un­eth­i­cal be­hav­iour,” he said.

Ma­haraj, the Ari­ma may­or, had faced calls for dis­missal af­ter at­tend­ing a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fundrais­ing event in De­cem­ber, though no ac­tion has been tak­en.

Both Ra­goonath and Ram­per­sad not­ed that Al-Rawi ap­pears less po­lit­i­cal­ly af­fect­ed by the con­tro­ver­sy, while James ar­gued that his se­nior­i­ty in­creas­es the lev­el of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty at­tached to his con­duct.

At­tempts to con­tact Beck­les for com­ment on her next steps were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.