Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was a no-show at the na­tion­al day of prayer she had pub­licly cham­pi­oned to re­place the coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, a move that drew swift and point­ed crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les.

The in­ter­faith ser­vice, host­ed by the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion, be­gan at 10 am at the Di­vali Na­gar in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day and was in­tend­ed to be the cen­tral ob­ser­vance of the re­vised na­tion­al hol­i­day.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence was not an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent. Guardian Me­dia, which left the event short­ly af­ter noon, not­ed a wide­spread lack of at­ten­dance from Cab­i­net mem­bers, leav­ing the ser­vice with­out any seem­ing­ly of­fi­cial Gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Ef­forts to con­tact the Prime Min­is­ter via What­sApp and calls to her cell phone for an ex­pla­na­tion were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.

The de­ci­sion to can­cel the tra­di­tion­al mil­i­tary pa­rade and fire­works in favour of the prayer day was made due to se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

Beck­les said she was “shocked and sur­prised” at the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence.

“I must say I’m ex­treme­ly shocked and sur­prised that the Prime Min­is­ter, since that was her call that to­day (yes­ter­day) is a na­tion­al day of prayer, is ab­sent. And from my in­for­ma­tion, there’s ab­solute­ly no­body from the Gov­ern­ment. I mean, that is shock­ing. That is sur­pris­ing. And it’s so very un­for­tu­nate be­cause the ques­tion aris­es, ‘If you say, look, let us have a na­tion­al day of prayer, it means you are lead­ing that par­tic­u­lar ex­er­cise.’ And if the Prime Min­is­ter could not at­tend, then some­body must have been there to sup­port her,” Beck­les told Guardian Me­dia as she at­tend­ed In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions put on by the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion at Nel­son Man­dela Park yes­ter­day.

She fur­ther asked, “So my ques­tion is, you can­cel the pa­rade, and if we re­call over the last 10 years or so, they ba­si­cal­ly don’t at­tend the pa­rade. So the coun­try is go­ing to ask it­self to­mor­row morn­ing (to­day), no pa­rade, to­tal ab­sence of a na­tion­al day of prayer, what re­al­ly do we con­clude?”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader said she was ea­ger­ly await­ing an ex­pla­na­tion from Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“I’m re­al­ly hop­ing they’re go­ing to ex­plain to us. I mean, why would you be ab­sent from an event or­gan­ised by the in­ter-re­li­gious body? Which means that we in Trinidad and To­ba­go have be­come ac­cus­tomed to them ba­si­cal­ly rep­re­sent­ing where all the dif­fer­ent re­li­gions are part of it. I’m re­al­ly very dis­ap­point­ed. I’m go­ing to wait to hear her ex­pla­na­tion for her ab­sence,” she added.

How­ev­er, Beck­les’ own ab­sence from the event was al­so not­ed. While she did not at­tend the ser­vice her­self, she said she had sent a rep­re­sen­ta­tive in her place as she had oth­er du­ties to ful­fil.

“So be­fore com­ing here (Nel­son Man­dela), I was in Ari­ma be­cause they had a day of dig­ni­ty, ba­si­cal­ly for the home­less; cut your hair, pro­vide clothes, pro­vide food, check your pres­sure. So that’s my first, and then I go back to Ari­ma for a pic­nic and then there’s Tu­na­puna. I en­sured, be­cause I re­ceived an in­vi­ta­tion from the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion to at­tend, and I have a rep­re­sen­ta­tive there who is go­ing to speak on my be­half, be­cause they did ask about bring­ing greet­ings. The Prime Min­is­ter in­di­cat­ed that we have a na­tion­al day of prayer. As an Op­po­si­tion and part of the gov­er­nance of the coun­try, I de­cid­ed that I will en­sure that some­one at­tends on my be­half,” Beck­les ex­plained.

Dr El­lis Bur­ris, Pres­i­dent of the IRO, con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that the Prime Min­is­ter had been in­vit­ed but of­fered a cau­tious and diplo­mat­ic re­sponse to her ab­sence.

“I think every­one has their mind and their priv­i­lege to think and do as they wish. You re­al­ly can­not chas­tise or try to bring down any­one for not at­tend­ing be­cause you don’t know of their per­son­al ac­tiv­i­ties,” he said, em­pha­sis­ing that “we al­ways have to re­spect that be­cause there are things that are go­ing on in peo­ple’s lives that we are not aware.”

He said if the Prime Min­is­ter chose not to par­tic­i­pate, then this must be re­spect­ed.

De­spite the low turnout and the high-pro­file ab­sences, Bur­ris main­tained the event was a suc­cess, see­ing it as a cru­cial first step in a larg­er spir­i­tu­al move­ment. He re­vealed the IRO had been ad­vo­cat­ing for a na­tion­al day of prayer long be­fore the Prime Min­is­ter’s call, and there­fore had been com­pelled to “take up the man­tle and do what we have done to­day.”

Bur­ris’ mes­sage ex­tend­ed be­yond the day’s events, call­ing for a con­tin­u­ous prac­tice of prayer akin to a dai­ly meal for spir­i­tu­al nour­ish­ment. He stressed the im­por­tance of prayer in “il­lu­mi­nat­ing your soul and the peo­ple around you,” and in cre­at­ing a bet­ter, more uni­fied world, es­pe­cial­ly in a time of glob­al and lo­cal con­flict.

Ex­pect neg­a­tive back­lash

—Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, who weighed in on the is­sue, stat­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter should have at­tend­ed the event she cham­pi­oned, or at the very least, “rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Gov­ern­ment should have at­tend­ed.”

“But she would have to an­swer those ques­tions,” he added, ac­knowl­edg­ing that the fi­nal de­ci­sion rest­ed with the Gov­ern­ment. “It is re­al­ly the call of the Prime Min­is­ter and her gov­ern­ment to de­cide where they want to go. Of course, I am al­most cer­tain that they will tell you that they went to pray some­where else.”

Ra­goonath al­so pre­dict­ed po­lit­i­cal back­lash, stat­ing that the Op­po­si­tion would “take it to its lim­it” and ar­gue that the event was not even sup­port­ed by the Gov­ern­ment that pro­posed it.

“The ques­tion is, did any­body from the Op­po­si­tion at­tend? We’re go­ing to get that back and forth be­tween Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion. I’ll say, sim­ply, there’ll be some neg­a­tive back­lash to it, but whether it will cre­ate any last­ing is­sues, I don’t think so at this point in time,” he added.

Ra­goonath too not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment had tak­en a clear po­si­tion by opt­ing for a na­tion­al day of prayer in­stead of the pa­rade. While ac­knowl­edg­ing the per­son­al na­ture of prayer, stat­ing, “Prayer means you can do that any­where,” Ra­goonath ac­knowl­edged and re­it­er­at­ed that a for­mal, com­mon prayer ses­sion was in­deed or­gan­ised by the IRO at the Di­vali Na­gar to re­place the an­nu­al In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade.