Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned third par­ties that while her par­ty is open to work­ing with oth­ers, she won’t al­low her mem­bers to be dis­re­spect­ed and small­er par­ties must al­so car­ry their weight—and not “play the fool” with the 300,000 strong UNC.

She al­so said UNC gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tions will close soon, and screen­ing be­gins short­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment at the par­ty’s Mon­day Night Re­port at the Preysal Sec­ondary School.

This, af­ter an anony­mous so­cial me­dia post hint­ing at is­sues with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance sur­faced.

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith said last Sun­day that his par­ty in­tend­ed to con­tin­ue di­a­logue among all par­ties to­wards an al­liance, but said what is re­quired to en­sure a change of gov­ern­ment is for all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to be ma­ture and ap­pre­ci­ate that all hands are need­ed on deck.

Last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, not­ing de­trac­tors who had spo­ken of “these kinder­garten chil­dren” in the UNC, said, “The ‘kinder­garten’ has grad­u­at­ed. We’re proud of all those young men and women we placed in the Par­lia­ment. They were the chil­dren of rank and file UNC mem­bers and I’ll lead you and lead them and when I’m gone, it’ll be your chil­dren who’ll lead the UNC.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who said it wasn’t easy to keep the UNC strong and unit­ed, not­ed the par­ty con­tin­ues amass­ing high rat­ings and mas­sive turnout every­where.

“As we con­tin­ue our jour­ney to­wards the next gen­er­al elec­tion, I agree that we should em­brace in­di­vid­u­als or groups who share our vi­sion and phi­los­o­phy for main­stream pol­i­tics rather than a parochial vi­sion ... but at the same time, we must de­mand dis­ci­pline and equal ef­fort from those who wish to join us. Third par­ties are wel­come but they have al­so to car­ry their weight,” she said.

“The no­tion that peo­ple want some­thing oth­er than the PNM or UNC, or that our pol­i­tics is trib­al, isn’t true. It’s more of a talk­ing point used by peo­ple seek­ing to forge a po­lit­i­cal space that has nev­er been care­ful­ly analysed ...

“Our na­tion­al vot­ing pat­terns al­so re­flect sin­gle and mul­ti-is­sue vot­ers. We must say so, since some third par­ties are cam­paign­ing on the false no­tion that a vote for UNC or PNM is racial­ly mo­ti­vat­ed. They’re con­demn­ing these two ma­jor par­ties by say­ing they rep­re­sent some­thing dif­fer­ent, but there’s a great amount of di­ver­si­ty in both these par­ties, which re­flects our so­ci­ety as a whole.”

She added, “I again pub­licly in­vite any small­er par­ty, stake­hold­er, in­de­pen­dent or non-aligned group to speak with us so we can work to­geth­er ... We’ll work with any­one even if they haven’t seen eye to eye with me in the past as I don’t tote feel­ins.

“I don’t mind if any­one was deroga­to­ry and in­sult­ing to­ward me in the past. I can for­give that. Let by­gones be by­gones, we move on ... how­ev­er, I will not tol­er­ate any dis­re­spect to our hard­work­ing, rank-and-file sup­port­ers; when (de­trac­tors) tell me ‘move this one and that one and say ‘the kinder­garten boys and girls have to go’ and put them.”

Say­ing mem­bers car­ried the par­ty on their backs through the tough­est times and car­ry her on their backs in her tough­est times, she added, “The rank and file mem­ber­ship will not be used and abused and treat­ed as hew­ers of wood and draw­ers of wa­ter.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, "I re­mem­ber the Pan­day days ... our sup­port­ers were treat­ed like sheep. The hi­er­ar­chy of that time would say to bring peo­ple, bring 'sheep'. And treat our sup­port­ers as me­nial and every meet­ing one or two fel­las would talk to the 'sheep'. I al­ways de­test­ed that treat­ment of our sup­port­ers. That's why I pro­mote those from our rank and file."

She added, "Small­er par­ties must be will­ing to work and car­ry their weight. It can’t be that UNC sup­port­ers must be 'sheep' and do al­most every­thing: host events, pro­vide re­sources, bring sup­port­ers, do or­gan­i­sa­tion. You must car­ry your weight! We have a 300,000 mem­ber­ship, don't play the fool with us!

"It can’t be small­er par­ties on­ly have a pres­ence on so­cial me­dia - that can't win elec­tions ... Yes, we must work to­geth­er, but oth­ers must say how large is their mem­ber­ship, do they have par­ty struc­tures, are they ca­pa­ble of hav­ing in­de­pen­dent live events? They have to bring some­thing to the ta­ble be­sides so­cial me­dia pres­ence."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­tail­ing, PP/UNC projects, thanked Jear­lean John, Roodal Mooni­lal and oth­ers. She slammed the Prime Min­is­ter's "ra-ra" crit­i­cism of UNC's an­ti-crime con­sul­ta­tions, adding when he re­turns from Guyana, he'll go on va­ca­tion and then to his med­ical trip.