Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar has roast­ed In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors for their crit­i­cism of the UNC’s be­hav­iour in last Thurs­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting on its mo­tion to re­move Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes and has al­so threat­ened le­gal ac­tion against the House Speak­er.

Speak­ing at last night’s UNC Fo­rum, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the tra­di­tion was not to crit­i­cise In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors but added that those days are over.

“You stepped out of your crease to do bat­tle for the PNM in the po­lit­i­cal gayelle (in Par­lia­ment)...so check your­self! We are on your case and we shall ex­pose who you are!”

The mo­tion sought to im­peach Pres­i­dent Weekes on is­sues con­cern­ing the se­lec­tion of a Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the col­lapse of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion but was de­feat­ed by Gov­ern­ment and In­de­pen­dent votes - 24 for-47 against.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the le­gal ac­tion the UNC in­tends to take will be against the “uni­lat­er­al il­le­gal guide­lines” used by House Speak­er Brigid An­nisette-George on the process for the mo­tion.

She added, “All of the Gov­ern­ment MPs and Sen­a­tors, to­geth­er with all of the so-called In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors (ap­point­ed by the Pres­i­dent) vot­ed to keep se­cret whether PM (Dr Kei­th) Row­ley and Pres­i­dent Weekes act­ed in con­cert to in­ter­fere in the PSC’s mer­it list for the post of Com­mis­sion­er.

“They didn’t want the Pres­i­dent to be in­ves­ti­gat­ed. They vot­ed to treat her like a queen who can­not be ques­tioned. They vot­ed to keep you in the dark as to why, for the first time in our his­to­ry, T&T doesn’t have a CoP or Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er, or an in­de­pen­dent PSC which can ap­point a Com­mis­sion­er.”

She added, “One of the most dis­grace­ful things about the vote was watch­ing how the so-called In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors ca­pit­u­lat­ed to the PNM’s will, as op­posed to stand­ing up for the peo­ple. These Sen­a­tors are hand­picked by the Pres­i­dent, so how can they be ex­pect­ed to vote to in­ves­ti­gate her?”

She said there was no se­cret bal­lot “be­cause this PNM Gov­ern­ment want­ed to put as much pres­sure on the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors as pos­si­ble.”

“These so-called In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors, do they find it dis­grace­ful that be­cause of Row­ley, for the first time in his­to­ry, that we have no CoP, no Act­ing CoP and on­ly one DCP and PSC? That the coun­try doesn’t know if the Prime Min­is­ter il­le­gal­ly in­flu­enced the Com­mis­sion or the Pres­i­dent in his vendet­ta against Gary Grif­fith, or whether the Pres­i­dent and PSC act­ed against the law in keep­ing the Mer­it List away from Par­lia­ment?”

She as­sert­ed, “This no­tion of ‘In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors’ has, over the last 50 years, bred the nasty idea that a por­tion of the pop­u­la­tion is some­how su­pe­ri­or, and they look down on the oth­ers, call­ing them trib­al, base, dis­re­spect­ful and dis­grace­ful. It’s an at­trac­tive con­cept for some, who will al­ways mim­ic their views in or­der to be seen as part of the elite class. Pan­day called them the par­a­sitic oli­garchy.

“We have in essence in­vent­ed our own aris­toc­ra­cy, where these lit­tle barons and baroness­es are hand­picked, and they now want to laud it over the rest of us...rel­a­tive un­knowns are el­e­vat­ed and giv­en the right to pon­tif­i­cate on Di­vali Na­gar and to tell us what is ‘re­spectable’ and who is dis­grace­ful, be­cause they are some­how above the or­di­nary cit­i­zens. But they nev­er say any­thing when the Prime Min­is­ter goes on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms and cuss­es those who op­pose him.”

“Some of their masks have slipped though. One of them was as silent as a lamb in the Par­lia­men­tary Cham­ber last Thurs­day, and he has now come out in the me­dia to at­tack the Op­po­si­tion and an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor. He’s en­tered the po­lit­i­cal gayelle... but you can’t play mas and fraid pow­der!” she added in ob­vi­ous ref­er­ence to com­ments made about the UNC’s be­hav­iour dur­ing the mo­tion by In­de­pen­dent An­tho­ny Vieira.

“When all these In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors could jump out if them­selves to crit­i­cise the Op­po­si­tion for de­mand­ing the right to rep­re­sent the views of the pop­u­la­tion, but will nev­er com­ment on se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence by the Prime Min­is­ter in the ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er, ask your­self who they are re­al­ly rep­re­sent­ing.”