Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­tin­ued use of the phrase “stink­ing c***ie”, de­scrib­ing it as “con­duct un­be­com­ing” of the of­fice she holds.

Mean­while, Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young said the Prime Min­is­ter was en­gaged in a “dis­trac­tion cam­paign” while thou­sands of cit­i­zens re­main con­cerned about un­em­ploy­ment and the chal­lenges fac­ing fam­i­lies prepar­ing for the re­turn of chil­dren to school.

Both spoke yes­ter­day amid the con­tin­u­ing fall­out from the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day con­tro­ver­sy.

Bharath said the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­peat­ed use of the phrase and what he de­scribed as the tar­get­ing of a par­tic­u­lar eth­nic group were in­con­sis­tent with the dig­ni­ty, re­straint and in­clu­sive­ness ex­pect­ed of the na­tion’s high­est elect­ed of­fice.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s con­tin­ued use of the phrase ‘stink­ing c***ie’ and the ap­par­ent tar­get­ing of a par­tic­u­lar eth­nic group are un­be­com­ing of an of­fice that should em­body dig­ni­ty, re­straint and in­clu­sive­ness.”

“Rather than ac­knowl­edg­ing the con­cerns raised by many cit­i­zens and recog­nis­ing the di­vi­sive na­ture of such rhetoric, she’s de­lib­er­ate­ly sought to frame her­self as the vic­tim of crit­i­cism.”

Bharath said the com­ment, al­leged­ly made by Star Sab­ga, was part of a pri­vate tele­phone con­ver­sa­tion be­tween two in­di­vid­u­als and was not in­tend­ed for pub­lic con­sump­tion.

“This wasn’t made by a busi­ness leader or politi­cian pub­licly. This was the rant of an el­der­ly woman, of lit­tle na­tion­al con­se­quence, frus­trat­ed by cer­tain events that af­fect­ed her fam­i­ly. We’d be very naive if we be­lieve that these out­bursts aren’t oc­cur­ring in homes, bars and oth­er spaces dai­ly,” Bharath said.

He ques­tioned why the Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ued to high­light the com­ment.

“The very same would have oc­curred when the PNM was in of­fice. Why then would the Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ue to give cre­dence to this con­ver­sa­tion oth­er than to cre­ate a nar­ra­tive for her base?”

Bharath said na­tion­al lead­ers had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­mote uni­ty rather than deep­en di­vi­sions.

“When the hold­er of the na­tion’s high­est elect­ed of­fice em­ploys lan­guage that many per­ceive as of­fen­sive and dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, the ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse is to clar­i­fy, ex­plain or apol­o­gise where war­rant­ed, not redi­rect at­ten­tion to­ward per­son­al vic­tim­hood.”

He added that Trinidad and To­ba­go’s so­cial fab­ric de­pend­ed on mu­tu­al re­spect among its di­verse com­mu­ni­ties.

“Per­sist­ing with rhetoric that ap­pears to sin­gle out one eth­nic group, while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly por­tray­ing one­self as the in­jured par­ty, risks deep­en­ing mis­trust, en­trench­ing eth­nic po­lar­i­sa­tion and erod­ing con­fi­dence in the im­par­tial­i­ty of na­tion­al lead­er­ship.”

Bharath said the coun­try faced se­ri­ous chal­lenges, in­clud­ing crime, un­em­ploy­ment, busi­ness clo­sures and eco­nom­ic and so­cial prob­lems, and re­quired lead­er­ship fo­cused on na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

“A leader’s role is to rise above pet­ti­ness—not to de­scend in­to moral in­ep­ti­tude. Trinidad and To­ba­go has se­ri­ous and fun­da­men­tal prob­lems... We de­serve lead­er­ship that can ad­dress these is­sues, one that ris­es above eth­nic rhetoric and pri­ori­tis­es na­tion­al uni­ty over po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tives of griev­ance and vic­tim­hood,” he said.

Young: “Do your job, PM”

Young, mean­while, called on the Prime Min­is­ter to fo­cus on the coun­try’s press­ing is­sues.

Say­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar was lead­ing a “dis­trac­tion cam­paign”, Young point­ed to the shut­down of the Nu­trien and Methanex plants, which he said re­sult­ed in job loss­es, re­duced for­eign ex­change earn­ings, lost rev­enue for Trinidad and To­ba­go and dam­age to the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion.

“The En­er­gy Min­istry hasn’t post­ed the month­ly oil and gas pro­duc­tion in­for­ma­tion since No­vem­ber 2025—what’s be­ing hid­den?” Young asked.

He claimed hun­dreds of small and medi­um-sized busi­ness­es had closed be­cause the econ­o­my was not be­ing prop­er­ly stim­u­lat­ed.

Young al­so crit­i­cised in­creas­es in tax­es, elec­tric­i­ty costs, LPG prices and land­lord tax­es, say­ing they had raised the cost of do­ing busi­ness dur­ing an al­ready dif­fi­cult pe­ri­od.

He claimed the Gov­ern­ment had bor­rowed bil­lions of dol­lars, in­clud­ing US$1.8 bil­lion in the past year, in­creas­ing the coun­try’s debt while rev­enues de­clined.

Young al­so ques­tioned the with­draw­al of more than US$510 mil­lion from the Her­itage and Sta­bil­i­sa­tion Fund, say­ing there had been no ad­e­quate ex­pla­na­tion.

He fur­ther raised con­cerns about the pro­longed State of Emer­gency, de­scrib­ing it as a “rolling SOE” and ques­tion­ing the use of Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs).

“Con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are be­ing sus­pend­ed. Voic­es of dis­sent are threat­ened and some even si­lenced by in­car­cer­a­tion us­ing PDOs,” Young said.