sto­ries by Akash Sama­roo

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Se­nior Re­porter/ Pro­duc­er

As a throng of sup­port­ers chant­ed her name on the perime­ter of Pres­i­dent’s House, St Ann’s, yes­ter­day, in­side, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, fresh­ly sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter yet again, pledged to serve every­one re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

“If you are UNC, TPP, PNM or any oth­er af­fil­i­a­tion, I see you. You will all be treat­ed equal­ly and fair­ly. I made a promise that every­body will win, and I plan to ful­fil it,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said to tu­mul­tuous ap­plause from those gath­ered for the oc­ca­sion.

The Prime Min­is­ter added, “If you are liv­ing on the fringes of the Gua­napo dump, in the co­conut es­tates in Ica­cos, in Ker­na­han Vil­lage in the Nar­i­va Swamp, on the coast­line in Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go, or in the la­goons of Bar­rack­pore, I see you.”

Seat­ed in­side Pres­i­dent’s House were her new­ly elect­ed mem­bers of par­lia­ment, coun­cil­lors and oth­er mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) hi­er­ar­chy.

While the cer­e­mo­ny be­gan with the usu­al pro­to­col of Pres­i­dent’s House, there were fre­quent out­bursts of cheers and when Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­proached the podi­um to ad­dress those in at­ten­dance, a cry came from some­where in the crowd, “I love you!”

“I love you too,” the Prime Min­is­ter said be­fore be­gin­ning her short speech.

She said her role as Prime Min­is­ter of T&T will be sim­ple. “It is to love you and to do every­thing pos­si­ble to make you and your loved ones hap­py,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “You will see what hap­pens when a gov­ern­ment cares.”

What was no­table dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny was the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion to swear on the Con­sti­tu­tion of this coun­try and not a holy book while tak­ing her oath of of­fice.

Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter­wards, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained, “We say here that every creed and race find an equal place, and I did not want to choose one holy book as against an­oth­er, be­cause we are all equal in the eyes of God. There is just one God and there is one race, the hu­man race. So, I thought that was best rather than se­lect­ing one of the holy books. I promised to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said her gov­ern­ment’s high­est pri­or­i­ty will not just be to com­mu­ni­cate with the peo­ple but to “com­mune” with them.

“I will nev­er be de­tached from your feel­ings and as­pi­ra­tions. I will nev­er do my own thing while the coun­try cries out for their needs. I will al­ways be lis­ten­ing. I will be fol­low­ing you. You will be my pri­or­i­ty. You must al­ways know that you have a leader who cares and un­der­stands your prob­lems.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was aware of how much peo­ple suf­fered un­der the pre­vi­ous Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion and she read the ri­ot act to her MPs present, warn­ing them she will not tol­er­ate the abuse and ne­glect of cit­i­zens, who she la­belled as her chil­dren.

“If you, as gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives, treat the cit­i­zens with love, I will re­flect that love on­to you. How­ev­er, if you treat the cit­i­zens with cal­lous­ness, con­tempt, and cor­rupt ways, I guar­an­tee you ret­ri­bu­tion will be swift and bru­tal. Nev­er mis­take my phys­i­cal ap­pear­ance or my kind­ness for weak­ness. There is noth­ing more dan­ger­ous than a moth­er who be­lieves her chil­dren are in dan­ger. Every­one would be wise to re­mem­ber that for the next five years,” she said, as more cheers erupt­ed.

She fur­ther warned that pa­tri­o­tism does mean stay­ing silent “to eat ah food,” while the poor and work­ing class­es are be­ing abused or tak­en ad­van­tage of.

Touch­ing briefly on ad­dress­ing crime, which was a ma­jor pil­lar of the UNC’s cam­paign, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Six months from to­day, un­der a new UNC gov­ern­ment, you will live in a safer and hap­pi­er Trinidad and To­ba­go. The last gov­ern­ment treat­ed cit­i­zens like you were the prob­lem, but I know you are the so­lu­tion.”

The Prime Min­is­ter told re­porters af­ter­wards that she was go­ing to the par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas, where she would meet with her team to dis­cuss fill­ing the rest of her Cab­i­net po­si­tions. Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not want to re­veal any­thing be­fore­hand, but she said she has re­quest­ed re­sumes and will not have dis­cus­sions with the rel­e­vant peo­ple.

John Je­re­mie was sworn in as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al yes­ter­day. (See page 6)

The rest of the Cab­i­net will be sworn in to­mor­row and the Per­sad-Bisses­sar said from next week, they will out­line their plans for the com­ing months.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo al­so seemed to en­joy the cel­e­bra­to­ry mood at Pres­i­dent’s House.

When she ad­dressed Per­sad-Bisses­sar as Prime Min­is­ter and the crowd broke in­to loud ap­plause and cheers, with a smile on her face, she said, “Do you want me to re­peat it again?”

Ad­dress­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo said, “Your ap­point­ment is once again, his­toric. You have now been ap­point­ed as Prime Min­is­ter for a sec­ond time. You are the on­ly fe­male in our coun­try’s his­to­ry to have been ap­point­ed PM and the on­ly woman to have oc­cu­pied that of­fice twice. The oc­ca­sion of this, your sec­ond prime min­is­te­r­i­al ap­point­ment is sig­nif­i­cant for women.”

For the first time in this coun­try’s his­to­ry, women will si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly oc­cu­py the of­fices of Pres­i­dent, Prime Min­is­ter and Op­po­si­tion Leader. Pen­ne­lope Beck­les-Robin­son was named Op­po­si­tion Leader by the PNM on Wednes­day.