Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John is as­sur­ing that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is well and will be ca­pa­ble of run­ning the coun­try should the par­ty win Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

She made the com­ment yes­ter­day dur­ing an in­ter­view on Slam 100.5 FM, in re­sponse to a ques­tion by host An­cil “Blaze” Isaacs about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s health.

The Gov­ern­ment has raised ques­tions about the health of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, who cel­e­brat­ed her 73rd birth­day on Tues­day, and her abil­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly lead.

But John, the UNC’s can­di­date for Cou­va North, told Isaacs that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is re­silient.

“It is the mind, it is the heart, you un­der­stand. It is the pur­pose, it is the vi­sion. That is what the peo­ple are vot­ing for,” she said.

“They know that for the en­tire­ty of her ca­reer, she has been about the peo­ple. Have we been per­fect as a par­ty? No, we can do bet­ter and we will do bet­ter.”

John said over the last ten years, the Op­po­si­tion had learnt a valu­able mes­sage and her leader can­not wait to lead.

She said tack­ling crime through job cre­ation and leg­is­la­tion will be among the first things the UNC will tack­le if they are elect­ed.

“We are com­mit­ted to say­ing that in the first five years, we will cut crime by 50 per cent,” she said, adding that with a de­tec­tion rate of 13 per cent, mur­der is a good busi­ness.

John said to ad­dress crime, the UNC will start with stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion so that cit­i­zens will be able to de­fend them­selves. They will then fo­cus on re­vamp­ing ear­ly ed­u­ca­tion child­hood cen­tres, which will be used as sup­port for young par­ents to help them “mend their lives” and give them back their dig­ni­ty.

On the is­sue of the econ­o­my, John rub­bished Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young’s claim that the UNC will take the coun­try to the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund (IMF).

She said the UNC was born out of the work­ing class and knows strug­gle and with that in its DNA, and the knowl­edge of what go­ing to the IMF will do to the coun­try, the par­ty will nev­er con­sid­er do­ing that.

Asked about the UNC’s part­ner­ship with trade unions, par­tic­u­lar­ly the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), John said the union wants its mem­bers to be able to af­ford to live and the Gov­ern­ment “just ap­pears to ig­nore them.”

“The pub­lic ser­vants are some of the low­est-paid work­ers in the coun­try and then their salaries are not in align­ment with the rate of in­fla­tion and the cost of liv­ing. Pub­lic ser­vants are not ask­ing for the right to get rich­er,” she said

On her plans for Cou­va North seat, John said the con­stituents want drains cleaned, rivers dredged and jus­tice for for­mer Ca­roni work­ers, so that they re­ceive the parcels of land promised to them.