Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has launched a scathing at­tack on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) over its promise to re­peal key pieces of leg­is­la­tion if it re­turns to of­fice, ac­cus­ing the Op­po­si­tion of putting young peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties at risk by op­pos­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing mea­sures.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to PNM Deputy Leader San­jiv Bood­hu, who an­nounced at the par­ty’s gen­er­al coun­cil meet­ing at Bal­isi­er House on Thurs­day that the par­ty would seek to re­peal the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions (Amend­ment) Bill 2026, the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill and the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill 2026 if elect­ed to of­fice.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar mocked the PNM’s po­si­tion on leg­is­la­tion deal­ing with spe­cial po­lice op­er­a­tions, al­co­hol, cannabis, dan­ger­ous drugs, gam­bling and to­bac­co, while in­sist­ing the Op­po­si­tion was free to chal­lenge the laws in court.

“If their cam­paign for 2030 GE (Gen­er­al Elec­tion) is to give young peo­ple weed, al­co­hol and drugs along with low-pay­ing me­nial jobs, while re­mov­ing the TTPS pro­tec­tion from their com­mu­ni­ties to al­low gangs to take over, I would ful­ly sup­port their de­ci­sion to cam­paign on that,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

She went on to de­scribe the Op­po­si­tion as “the ab­solute dumb­est ver­sion of the PNM ever,” adding, “They are free to go to court.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused the PNM of op­pos­ing spe­cial po­lice op­er­a­tions in com­mu­ni­ties it rep­re­sents, warn­ing that the Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue de­ploy­ing of­fi­cers in ar­eas rep­re­sent­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

“The PNM has made it clear that they don’t want spe­cial op­er­a­tions by the TTPS in their ar­eas, so I sup­port them. There will def­i­nite­ly be SOs (Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) in UNC ar­eas to deal harsh­ly with crim­i­nals, and the PNM can al­low the lo­cal drug mafia to de­stroy their con­stituen­cies,” she said.

Mean­while, Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Bar­ry Padarath al­so dis­missed the PNM’s promise to re­peal sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion passed by the UNC gov­ern­ment, in­sist­ing the Op­po­si­tion has lit­tle chance of re­turn­ing to of­fice af­ter the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

Padarath dis­missed the de­c­la­ra­tion as wish­ful think­ing, tak­ing aim at Bood­hu’s po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­ri­ence.

“I un­der­stand the po­lit­i­cal in­ex­pe­ri­ence of this neo­phyte, San­jiv Bood­hu, in that that is wish­ful think­ing, that is liv­ing in a fool’s par­adise,” Padarath said.

He added, “There’s no snow­ball chance in hell that the PNM is go­ing to re­turn to pow­er in any gen­er­al elec­tion, and there­fore these threats of re­peal­ing crit­i­cal pieces of leg­is­la­tion, we are not both­ered by that.”

Padarath main­tained that the leg­is­la­tion re­flect­ed com­mit­ments made by the UNC ahead of and dur­ing the last gen­er­al elec­tion, ar­gu­ing that the par­ty’s elec­toral vic­to­ry gave it a man­date to im­ple­ment those mea­sures.

“These were things that we were speak­ing about in the pop­u­la­tion pri­or to the gen­er­al elec­tion and dur­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion, and we got a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty where the gen­er­al elec­tion was held,” Padarath said.

He ac­cused the PNM of at­tempt­ing to un­der­mine the elec­torate’s de­ci­sion, but in­sist­ed the Gov­ern­ment would re­main fo­cused on its leg­isla­tive agen­da.

“I’m not sur­prised that the PNM will try to sub­vert the will, the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic will of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, but we would not be both­ered with that,” he said.

Padarath al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence that the UNC would se­cure an­oth­er elec­toral vic­to­ry, while ac­knowl­edg­ing the chal­lenges fac­ing the Gov­ern­ment.

“The UNC will con­tin­ue to per­se­vere, and we are al­most cer­tain that come the next gen­er­al elec­tion, we will be vic­to­ri­ous again at the polls. We are hold­ing true to the things we promise the pop­u­la­tion,” he said.

He blamed the coun­try’s cur­rent dif­fi­cul­ties on what he de­scribed as a decade of ne­glect un­der the PNM, cit­ing crime, cor­rup­tion and wastage.

“It is not an easy road we are walk­ing. Ten years of ne­glect, ten years of high crime in this coun­try, ram­pant cor­rup­tion and wastage, and we are start­ing bit by bit to fix it,” Padarath said.