Gail Alexan­der & Dereece Po­lo

This coun­try is suf­fer­ing from “Bat­tered Wife Syn­drome” due to the PNM Gov­ern­ment, Karen Nunez-Tesheira claimed yes­ter­day, as she re­signed from the PNM say­ing her for­mer par­ty needs to be put out of of­fice.

How­ev­er, while she said she’s not go­ing to be on a UNC plat­form ahead of the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, Nunez-Tesheira ad­mit­ted she is ex­am­in­ing her po­lit­i­cal op­tions and aims on a po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

She added that she’s not say­ing the al­ter­na­tives to PNM are “won­der­ful” but if they’re nec­es­sary to save T&T, “so be it.”

A one­time Fi­nance Min­is­ter un­der the Patrick Man­ning PNM gov­ern­ment, Nunez-Tesheira last No­vem­ber lost her at­tempt at se­cur­ing the PNM lead­er­ship from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tion. In the four-way race, Row­ley got 8,424 votes, Nunez-Tesheira 345, Ronald Boynes 243 and Ju­nior Bar­rack 99. Pri­or to PNM elec­tions, she was at UNC events speak­ing against the Gov­ern­ment.

Yes­ter­day, Nunez-Tesheira sent a res­ig­na­tion let­ter to PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings, for­mal­ly no­ti­fy­ing of her res­ig­na­tion with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Nunez-Tesheira, in the PNM since the 1990s, was asked about her rea­son for leav­ing now with the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion cam­paign cli­max­ing. She said she’d pon­dered it a while and it had to do with how the Gov­ern­ment had treat­ed cit­i­zens “which reached a point where si­lence isn’t an op­tion.”

She said it re­mind­ed her of the Bat­tered Wife Syn­drome in­volv­ing co­er­cive con­trol not so much re­gard­ing the im­pact on the re­cip­i­ent by the per­pe­tra­tor, but more the re­cip­i­ent’s re­sponse to the con­duct. She ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of an, “un­abat­ed bar­rage of be­hav­iour in­volv­ing gaslight­ing a feel­ing that you’re worth­less, a cock­roach, ter­mite and don’t take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for your be­hav­iour, putting the mis­con­duct on vic­tims, leav­ing them feel­ing worth­less and try­ing to make the per­pe­tra­tor seem like they’re of­fer­ing pro­tec­tion.”

Claim­ing the Gov­ern­ment was a “creep­ing dic­ta­tor­ship” and “democ­ra­cy is un­der threat,” Nunez-Tesheira list­ed the Brent Thomas is­sue, the for­mer AG’s fall­out with the Chief Par­lia­men­tary Coun­sel, the new AG be­ing blocked by US courts in the Pi­ar­co Air­port case; the Privy Coun­cil’s rul­ing on the LG term ex­ten­sion; many pro­cure­ment law amend­ments, two min­is­ters’ many re­cusals from mat­ters where there was con­flict of in­ter­est, Row­ley’s call­ing a state of emer­gency for COVID and end­ing it for To­ba­go polls as ar­eas of mis­man­age­ment.

She claimed there’s a “mess in the econ­o­my with nat­ur­al gas, in­come in­equal­i­ty, guns and drugs en­ter­ing T&T.”

Nunez-Tesheira added, “How many things must this Gov­ern­ment do and for peo­ple to take this abuse with­out giv­ing way and say­ing enough is enough? We’ve got to save T&T! Whether by open­ing the doors—as the bat­tered wife does and get­ting out—or we’ll be in a sit­u­a­tion be­yond sav­ing.

“It’s time for T&T to breathe and get rid of this Gov­ern­ment be­fore it’s too late. It’s not in T&T’s in­ter­est to al­low them back in of­fice, as they’ve showed who they are—lack of re­spect for democ­ra­cy. LG elec­tions has al­ways been the way to give an in­di­ca­tion of what to ex­pect.”

Nunez-Tesheira, who’s vot­ing Mon­day said she won’t be on UNC’s plat­forms, but added, “I’m not say­ing I won’t join a par­ty. We’ll see. I’m ex­am­in­ing op­tions. I won’t be an arm­chair crit­ic, I’ll keep speak­ing. But this (res­ig­na­tion) is the first nec­es­sary step to­wards an in­de­pen­dent po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

“There are a num­ber of par­ties ... whether coali­tion. I’m not say­ing the al­ter­na­tives are won­der­ful but if they’re nec­es­sary to save T&T—and if like a bat­tered wife needs time to re­group—so be it. But she has to get out of that ‘house’. We can’t al­low them back due to the fear, help­less­ness and hope­less­ness here.”

Con­tact­ed on the res­ig­na­tion yes­ter­day, Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga said, “I didn’t re­alise she was still a mem­ber. Her res­ig­na­tion is noth­ing—that’s like say­ing you’re not at­tend­ing a func­tion to which you weren’t in­vit­ed.”

An­a­lysts: De­par­ture won’t af­fect LG cam­paign

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad yes­ter­day said while Nunez-Tesheira’s res­ig­na­tion is not sur­pris­ing, it will not im­pact the LGE, even if she joins an­oth­er par­ty.

“She’s clear­ly not hap­py with the sta­tus quo and she con­test­ed against the leader, so she’s not hap­py with the lead­er­ship of the PNM and that is quite clear. We don’t know if she’s aim­ing to go to an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty but if she does, in the gen­er­al elec­tions is where it will have the im­pact,” Ram­per­sad said.

Ram­per­sad said it was, how­ev­er, en­tire­ly pos­si­ble that Nunez-Tesheira’s res­ig­na­tion could cause a domi­no ef­fect with her sup­port­ers, as they too can with­draw their mem­ber­ship from the PNM.

How­ev­er, an­oth­er an­a­lyst, Derek Ram­samooj, held the op­po­site view.

“Sad­ly, it will not have any im­pact, not just in the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion, but in the run­ning of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment. For this res­ig­na­tion to have an im­pact on the wider na­tion­al body, you have to un­der­stand whether or not the out­go­ing Karen Nunez-Tesheira has any sort of pub­lic stand­ing among the elec­torate. While there may be pro­fes­sion­al pub­lic stand­ing, po­lit­i­cal pub­lic stand­ing is a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent di­men­sion,” he said.

He al­so point­ed out that her in­tegri­ty can be called in­to ques­tion if she switch­es to an op­pos­ing po­lit­i­cal par­ty.

“Mov­ing from one po­lit­i­cal par­ty to an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty will raise ques­tions about your pub­lic in­tegri­ty and your po­lit­i­cal pos­tur­ing when it comes to cer­tain spe­cif­ic poli­cies,” he said.