Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress at­tor­neys are as­sist­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in draft­ing a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to call Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions now—and ex­plain how coun­cil­lors’ po­si­tions stand fol­low­ing the re­cent Privy Coun­cil judg­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­vealed this at last night’s UNC Mon­day Night re­port at Na­pari­ma Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do.

She de­clared, “We have to win the San Fer­nan­do bor­ough (in LG elec­tion)!”

She vowed that when the UNC wins, it will put gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties there and the next UNC gov­ern­ment will root gangs out of San Fer­nan­do and T&T.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar hailed the Privy Coun­cil judg­ment which ruled Gov­ern­ment’s ex­ten­sion of the LG term was un­law­ful. She not­ed that ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj, who she said is “our le­gal lu­mi­nary,” was al­ready send­ing her notes on UNC’s next case against Gov­ern­ment. Ma­haraj was front row at the meet­ing, stand­ing to ac­knowl­edge ap­plause.

De­spite the judg­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­leged Row­ley was in To­ba­go and “Faris nowhere to be found—he hid­ing!”

She added, “I’ve had to write the Prime Min­is­ter. Our lawyers are help­ing me now to draft a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley to call the elec­tions now!

“I’ll give you a few days and if you don’t re­spond, we have our le­gal lu­mi­nary Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj to take you back to court to de­mand that elec­tions be held.”

The state of “lim­bo” fol­low­ing the judg­ment is the PNM’s fault, she said, adding that Gov­ern­ment needs to say how it will rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion and how soon.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her let­ter to Row­ley would call for him to ad­dress coun­cil­lors’ con­cerns, in­clud­ing if their of­fices are va­cant. She felt they were va­cant since last De­cem­ber and if coun­cil­lors did any­thing they’d be li­able for “act­ing il­le­gal­ly.”

“But the most im­por­tant ques­tion—what is the date of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion,” she added.

She said she didn’t know if the Gov­ern­ment would val­i­date coun­cils or oth­er­wise.

“But they can’t bring a ‘Lazarus’ bill to raise the dead—we’ll take you to court again!”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “We’re on the road to vic­to­ry for Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment or gen­er­al elec­tions whichev­er they may be!”

She said the PNM knows the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment “elec­tions are com­ing” and were “patch­ing pot­holes”. She claimed they’d use the chair­man and may­ors who can func­tion, “to do their bid­ding.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that prop­er­ty tax is com­ing via a bill in Par­lia­ment to­mor­row—the Val­u­a­tion of Land bill. How­ev­er, she said union lead­ers took “four per cent from Row­ley and not a dog bark...”

She said “they” may give you a red jer­sey and 10 days. “What­ev­er they give you, take it and vote dem out!”

She called on the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to say why Al-Rawi and at­tor­neys Dou­glas Mendes and Gilbert Pe­ter­son haven’t been called to ac­count on al­leged “wit­ness tam­per­ing” on the Vin­cent Nel­son is­sue. She claimed the TTPS is be­ing dis­graced by some “be­ing a Mon­goose gang for PNM.”

She al­leged high TTPS mem­bers” are “forc­ing of­fi­cers in the Brent Thomas mat­ter to “help out the min­is­ter who may have been di­rect­ing them.”

UNC’s Sad­dam Ho­sein mean­while slammed LG Min­is­ter Al-Rawi’s si­lence on the judg­ment.

“He has a spe­cial tal­ent, as he could loss as At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and loss while he’s not AG...”

Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al said Al-Rawi was an em­bar­rass­ment as MP.

Sean Sobers al­so said the San Fer­nan­do LG cam­paign was launched last night.

“San Fer­nan­do is with­in our sights, we’ll win it and in­stall a UNC may­or!”

Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts al­so de­clared, “When elec­tions are called, there will be no sym­pa­thy for the PNM!”

Roberts said some of his own team­mates come and tell him his leader is weak, but that was PNM’s mes­sage.

“So, as a fam­i­ly we must unite…if we break this last chance, we’ll be in per­il—do not di­vide the UNC!”