Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ac­cused the PNM of want­i­ng to use Venezue­lan mi­grants to steal up­com­ing elec­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who is al­so the UNC leader, was at the time de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress when Ummah TT/Mus­lim Fed­er­a­tion held its an­nu­al Eid Din­ner on Sun­day night June 23, at the Fe­lic­i­ty Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre, Ch­agua­nas.

She said the gov­ern­ment is seek­ing to pass leg­is­la­tion that would give the aliens the right to vote.

“The gov­ern­ment has filed some­thing known as Im­mi­gra­tions Reg­u­la­tions in the Par­lia­ment, we have ap­plied to an­nul those reg­u­la­tions and that de­bate should come up in the week ahead," she said.

She added: "What is fright­en­ing in those reg­u­la­tions is that it is giv­ing pow­er to the min­is­ter in charge of im­mi­gra­tion the pow­er to reg­u­lar­ize and nat­u­ralise aliens. I use aliens in the sense that they are non-Com­mon­wealth. If you are a Com­mon­wealth cit­i­zen there is a cer­tain process to be­come a res­i­dent and or to be­come a cit­i­zen, but if you are an alien such as those from Venezuela, in the law. I don’t mean alien from Mars. I don’t mean in a bad way, alien in terms of the law. This is giv­ing pow­er to the Min­is­ter, and who is the min­is­ter, a politi­cian and a mem­ber of the present gov­ern­ment, the pow­er to make one of these or the 14,000 or 20,000 Venezue­lans to give them the res­i­den­cy then the cit­i­zen­ship."

The Op­po­si­tion Leader con­tin­ued: "You know what hap­pens, your vote is to­tal­ly lost and would not count be­cause you hav­ing these aliens be­ing put to vote be­cause af­ter you give them the res­i­den­cy they can vote in a lo­cal elec­tion and af­ter that you give them the cit­i­zen­ship with the stroke of a pen they are go­ing to be al­lowed to vote there is no way, no way the Op­po­si­tion is go­ing to sup­port that kind of law.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this was a fright­en­ing de­vel­op­ment.

“See­ing the his­to­ry of the EBC which we saw in the last elec­tion, we il­le­gal­ly changed the reg­u­la­tions, the time, the court ruled it was il­le­gal, the court went to say it wouldn’t make a dif­fer­ence, I beg to dis­agree with that but then for those mat­ters there is no Privy Coun­cil,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that this move can pos­si­bly wipe out the vote of bonafide T&T cit­i­zens.

She said if aliens are al­lowed to vote they could give the PNM the ad­van­tage in the mar­gin­al seats.

“In these con­stituen­cies all they need to do is reg­is­ter a few hun­dred and thief the elec­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the meet­ing.

She said the Op­po­si­tion would be look­ing at the leg­is­la­tion in law.