“Nev­er ever, ever take my kind­ness for weak­ness!”

That was the re­peat­ed strong warn­ing from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night as she spoke at the UNC’s Mon­day Re­port in Moru­ga.

“I serve you with no­tice—don’t say you were nev­er no­ti­fied,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, with­out call­ing names of her de­trac­tors.

The UNC meet­ing oc­curred even as a meet­ing was al­so sched­uled to be held last night at San Fer­nan­do Yacht Club by dis­si­dent MPs Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray (Ma­yaro), Rod­ney Charles (Na­pari­ma) and Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne (Tabaquite) with par­ty mem­bers.

It was the lat­est meet­ing Paray has ad­dressed. He re­cent­ly led a chal­lenge to Per­sad-Bisses­sar to have UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions in June.

It was con­firmed yes­ter­day that Paray was “in­vit­ed” to speak at the Yacht Club, just as he was in­vit­ed to ad­dress an­oth­er meet­ing last week in Cou­va.

The San Fer­nan­do meet­ing was ad­ver­tised as be­ing un­der the “San Fer­nan­do Or­gan­is­ing Com­mit­tee”. It was or­gan­ised by one of the UNC’s for­mer tech­ni­cal op­er­a­tors.

Al­so, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly again re­peat­ed his calls for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down in or­der to give the par­ty its best chance at win­ning the next gen­er­al elec­tion. Ram­bal­ly, who’s sup­port­ed Paray’s Na­tex call, last Fri­day ver­bal­ly at­tacked Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship.

Last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, start­ing her ad­dress, jovial­ly thanked peo­ple for the feed­back of love and smiles. She said love was very im­por­tant and “if I could sing with you, I’d sing ‘Put a Lit­tle Love in Your Heart, don’t be an­gry all the time”.

With­out iden­ti­fy­ing any­one, she added, “I won­der, some peo­ple when they wake up in the morn­ing, like they have noth­ing good to do, or say.

“Some peo­ple, from the time they get up in the morn­ing, some­times they don’t even sleep - they’re key­board war­riors ... send a smile, send some yel­low hearts (emo­jis) at least, but some peo­ple seem to live in so much anger and pain! Let us say God bless them - put a lit­tle love in your heart and live a good live. Live your best life.”

She said the UNC had grown tremen­dous­ly be­tween the time she and UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal had joined it and now rep­re­sents every creed, race and re­li­gion rep­re­sent­ing T&T’s di­ver­si­ty. Say­ing the UNC will con­tin­ue be­ing a par­ty of great di­ver­si­ty and tol­er­ance, she added that when mem­bers be­gan years ago, one couldn’t see the mix, as what was seen at last night’s meet­ing.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the UNC was open to all peo­ple from all walks of life, all faiths, morals and val­ue must be re­spect­ed as all are equal­ly im­por­tant. She said she re­mem­bered late Min­is­ter/MP Mor­gan Job used to tell her, “See not race in every face, see grace as we’re all chil­dren of God”.

“I ask you to re­mem­ber that - see not race in every face but see grace be­cause we’re all chil­dren of God. That is my heart­felt be­lief and a foun­da­tion stone of the great UNC. There’s no room for in­tol­er­ance, ex­trem­ism of any kind in our UNC. As your leader - as a na­tion­al leader, I rep­re­sent all peo­ple equal­ly and fair­ly,” she said.

“I can­not and will not be con­trolled by any in­di­vid­ual or group to pro­mote any sin­gu­lar agen­da at the ex­pense of oth­er sec­tions of our coun­try. I’ll al­ways pro­mote the well-be­ing of our di­verse beau­ti­ful peo­ple with the same lev­el of love and com­mit­ment I’ve al­ways shown in my life. I’ll con­tin­ue to par­tic­i­pate in every as­pect of our mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety with­out fear. Like­wise, I re­spect the right of any per­son who choos­es not to par­tic­i­pate in ac­cor­dance with their own views to do as they think best - we’re still a free so­ci­ety.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that is the choice she’s made.

“And that’s the choice I ask every UNC mem­ber to make to par­tic­i­pate in the di­ver­si­ty that is T&T. There will al­ways be dif­fer­ences in any so­ci­ety, but I be­lieve I show love and re­spect to all equal­ly.

“As leader of this great UNC par­ty and as a na­tion­al leader, I give you the as­sur­ance I’ll show tol­er­ance, love and com­pas­sion with­out fear or favour.”

“But I warn you,” she said, her voice grow­ing firmer, “Do not take my kind­ness for weak­ness! Do not take my kind­ness for weak­ness! I warn you. Be­cause I am strong, I’m UNC and proud ... Nev­er ever, ever take my kind­ness for weak­ness!!

“Nev­er. I serve you with no­tice. Don’t say you were nev­er no­ti­fied.”

200 nom­i­na­tions for 39 seats

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who praised Moru­ga MP Michelle Ben­jamin, said the UNC had re­ceived 200 gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tions for the 39 seats in Trinidad. She said that meant peo­ple “like the par­ty - they want to rep­re­sent”.

She said there would have to be screen­ing. Af­ter last Thurs­day’s dead­line for sub­mis­sions of nom­i­na­tions, she added, “We don’t want to be caught off guard … As of now, the next step is for the UNC sec­re­tari­at to en­gage in thor­ough fact-check­ing of each of these nom­i­na­tions, to ver­i­fy the ve­rac­i­ty of the in­for­ma­tion each of them would have sub­mit­ted. That’s what will be tak­ing place now, as per pro­ce­dure and process.”

She said the par­ty must do what it must do in ac­cor­dance with its con­sti­tu­tion as it goes for­ward. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, not­ing two by-elec­tions due ahead, al­so said, “It will be licks like fire! We’ll wipe them up in both seats!”