Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Re­pub­lic Day mes­sage to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers has trig­gered fresh po­lit­i­cal con­tro­ver­sy, with Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day, for­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath and oth­er promi­nent voic­es ques­tion­ing both the tone and tim­ing of her re­marks.

In a so­cial me­dia mes­sage di­rect­ed at UNC mem­bers on Thurs­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­flect­ed on the par­ty’s po­lit­i­cal jour­ney, say­ing that since 1976, the UNC and its pre­de­ces­sor or­gan­i­sa­tions had at times been “un­der­es­ti­mat­ed, vil­i­fied and dis­re­spect­ed.”

How­ev­er, she ar­gued that some of those chal­lenges stemmed from the “self­ish­ness, cow­ardice and ar­ro­gance of weak men and women with­in our own par­ty.”

The com­ments drew an im­me­di­ate re­sponse from Pan­day, daugh­ter of for­mer UNC leader and prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Pan­day said she ob­ject­ed to what she viewed as a dis­mis­sive char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion of the peo­ple who helped build the UNC and the po­lit­i­cal move­ments that pre­ced­ed it.

“Yes, I do take is­sue with that char­ac­ter­i­sa­tion,” she said.

“I think it is un­fair to de­scribe the his­to­ry of the UNC and its pre­de­ces­sors in terms of ‘self­ish­ness, cow­ardice and ar­ro­gance of weak men and women with­in our own par­ty.’”

In­vok­ing her fa­ther’s po­lit­i­cal lega­cy, Pan­day said Bas­deo Pan­day built his move­ment around giv­ing or­di­nary cit­i­zens a voice and ad­vanc­ing equal­i­ty, in­clu­sion and op­por­tu­ni­ty.

She ar­gued that in­ter­nal dis­agree­ments should not lead to gen­er­a­tions of ac­tivists and lead­ers be­ing por­trayed as weak.

“The UNC has a long and im­por­tant his­to­ry and many peo­ple gave their blood, sweat and tears to build that par­ty. I think that his­to­ry de­serves to be spo­ken about with greater fair­ness and re­spect,” she said

Pan­day al­so said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties now ex­tend be­yond her par­ty.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, it is about lead­er­ship,” she said.

“The Prime Min­is­ter has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to recog­nise that while she leads a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the of­fice she holds be­longs to the en­tire coun­try.”

For­mer UNC min­is­ter and life­long par­ty mem­ber Bharath was equal­ly crit­i­cal of the mes­sage, de­scrib­ing it as an­oth­er ex­am­ple of what he called “di­vi­sive­ness, ven­om and lack of po­lit­i­cal ma­tu­ri­ty.”

He ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of cel­e­brat­ing the UNC’s his­to­ry while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly di­min­ish­ing those re­spon­si­ble for build­ing it.

Bharath cit­ed fig­ures such as Bas­deo Pan­day, John Humphrey, Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, Win­ston Dook­er­an, Kelvin Ram­nath and Trevor Su­dama among those who helped con­struct the po­lit­i­cal move­ment on which the cur­rent UNC lead­er­ship stands.

He al­so chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter’s as­ser­tion that the par­ty is stronger to­day, ar­gu­ing that its elec­toral suc­cess has re­lied heav­i­ly on a coali­tion of po­lit­i­cal new­com­ers, for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­bers and groups out­side its tra­di­tion­al base.

“A gen­uine­ly strong po­lit­i­cal par­ty does not mere­ly win of­fice through an as­sort­ment of al­lies. It has a deep mem­ber­ship base, func­tion­ing con­stituen­cy ma­chin­ery, a cred­i­ble pipeline of new lead­ers, or­gan­i­sa­tion­al dis­ci­pline and the ca­pac­i­ty to mo­bilise vot­ers un­der its own ban­ner. Any­thing else is po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience,” Bharath said.

“This is the cen­tral in­dict­ment of her lead­er­ship. She claims cred­it for the UNC’s ‘strength’ while blam­ing its pre­de­ces­sors for its weak­ness.”

Ac­cord­ing to Bharath, in­sti­tu­tion­al strength should be mea­sured by the depth of a par­ty’s mem­ber­ship, the ef­fec­tive­ness of its con­stituen­cy ma­chin­ery, lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment and or­gan­i­sa­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty.

Jack­son urges cit­i­zens to stay fo­cused

Cul­tur­al ac­tivist Abeo Jack­son took a dif­fer­ent view, sug­gest­ing the po­lit­i­cal de­bate risked dis­tract­ing cit­i­zens from more press­ing na­tion­al con­cerns.

Jack­son urged the pub­lic to “stay fo­cused” on what she de­scribed as the in­ter­con­nect­ed so­cial and eco­nom­ic chal­lenges con­fronting the coun­try.

“It’s not us. We are be­ing sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly gaslit, right?” she said.

She ar­gued that cit­i­zens re­main trapped with­in sys­tems that con­tin­ue to gen­er­ate eco­nom­ic hard­ship and so­cial in­equal­i­ty, and said Re­pub­lic Day should in­stead have prompt­ed re­flec­tion on sov­er­eign­ty, free­dom and the pro­tec­tion of vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

“Stay fo­cused on the task that is pro­tect­ing our sov­er­eign­ty,” she said.

“Stay fo­cused on the task that is pro­tect­ing our com­mu­ni­ties from mil­i­tari­sa­tion and frac­ture and sys­temic vi­o­lence.”

Jack­son al­so called for greater at­ten­tion to chil­dren and vul­ner­a­ble groups, de­scrib­ing free­dom as an on­go­ing na­tion­al project rather than a com­plet­ed achieve­ment.

“Stay fo­cused on the task of con­tin­ued lib­er­a­tion and con­tin­ued free­dom,” she said.

“Whether it was eman­ci­pa­tion, those things are not foot­steps. They are el­lipses. It is not a fin­ished jour­ney.”

She ar­gued that Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains en­gaged in a con­tin­u­ing strug­gle for “self-own­er­ship, self-iden­ti­fi­ca­tion, au­ton­o­my, agency and true free­dom and lib­er­a­tion.”

Link­ing those con­cerns to broad­er eco­nom­ic re­al­i­ties, Jack­son said many cit­i­zens are strug­gling sim­ply to sur­vive.

“There is no mid­dle class. There is work­ing class. There is work­ing poor, ac­tu­al­ly,” she said.

She urged cit­i­zens not to be­come con­sumed by po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties or par­ti­san dis­putes and in­stead recog­nise their col­lec­tive pow­er.

Mo­hammed: PM al­so speak­ing to her base

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed of­fered a more nu­anced in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to is­sue a sep­a­rate Re­pub­lic Day mes­sage to UNC mem­bers.

Mo­hammed not­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter had re­leased both a na­tion­al Re­pub­lic Day state­ment and a par­ty-spe­cif­ic mes­sage, re­flect­ing the dual roles she oc­cu­pies as head of Gov­ern­ment and UNC leader.

He sug­gest­ed the mes­sage was in­tend­ed to main­tain her con­nec­tion with the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship at a time when tra­di­tion­al pub­lic par­ty fo­rums have not been held as reg­u­lar­ly.

While min­is­ters and MPs now car­ry the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of Gov­ern­ment, Mo­hammed said main­tain­ing con­tact with the par­ty base re­mains im­por­tant.

“I take it that the Prime Min­is­ter used these op­por­tu­ni­ties to main­tain her con­nec­tion with the mem­ber­ship of the UNC,” he said.

He de­scribed the mes­sage as an at­tempt to re­as­sure sup­port­ers that, de­spite the de­mands of of­fice, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained con­nect­ed to the move­ment that brought her to pow­er.

“It’s a state­ment of com­fort. It’s a state­ment of con­nec­tion,” Mo­hammed said.

He added that the mes­sage sig­nalled to par­ty mem­bers that the Prime Min­is­ter recog­nised their con­tri­bu­tion to her po­lit­i­cal jour­ney and had not for­got­ten the par­ty base.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing Pan­day’s ar­gu­ment that Per­sad-Bisses­sar is Prime Min­is­ter for the en­tire coun­try, Mo­hammed not­ed that she con­tin­ues to oc­cu­py a par­ti­san lead­er­ship role as well.

“She is al­so the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” he said.

As a re­sult, Mo­hammed said there was noth­ing un­usu­al about the Prime Min­is­ter com­mu­ni­cat­ing di­rect­ly with par­ty sup­port­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ab­sence of reg­u­lar par­ty meet­ings.