Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James says Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­cent en­dorse­ment of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship of the UNC is strate­gic as the gen­er­al elec­tion looms. While speak­ing on the Sup­ple­men­ta­tion of Ap­pro­pri­a­tion by $2.3 bil­lion in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Fri­day, the Prime Min­is­ter backed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s po­si­tion as leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress.

“The Op­po­si­tion leader, fum­ing about every­thing, hop­ing for a knock out punch, Madame Speak­er on the 16th of June those flim­sy arms will knock out no­body and I could say Madame Speak­er as I sup­port her, leave her right there be­cause I sup­port her. Don’t move her, leave her right there,” Row­ley said then.

The UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions (NA­TEX) take place next Sat­ur­day. Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray is lead­ing a slate called Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots, while Per­sad-Bisses­sar has thrown her sup­port be­hind the star Slate.

Speak­ing on the un­usu­al en­dorse­ment yes­ter­day, James con­tend­ed that the UNC’s leader is be­ing con­sid­ered an easy po­lit­i­cal foe and it is some­thing Per­sad-Bisses­sar should not take light­ly.

“We must think that he most like­ly is talk­ing tongue in cheek and he is giv­ing the im­pres­sion that Kam­la is so in­ept in her lead­er­ship that her pres­ence as po­lit­i­cal leader is go­ing to ben­e­fit the PNM. We can­not think that Row­ley was be­ing whole­heart­ed­ly and gen­uine­ly in sup­port of Kam­la be­cause they are po­lit­i­cal foes,” he said.

James al­so ex­plained that the po­lit­i­cal un­der­tones in the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments speak to the con­cerns that have sur­faced about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s abil­i­ty to steer the par­ty to vic­to­ry at the polls.

“If he is se­ri­ous then what he’s ask­ing us to be­lieve is that Kam­la is good for him, if Kam­la is good for him then she can­not be good for the UNC, if you fol­low that line of ar­gu­ment or rea­son­ing. If he is sin­cere with what he is say­ing then that is bad for Kam­la,” he added.

Re­cent­ly at a cot­tage meet­ing, the head of the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate, Paray ex­pressed his frus­tra­tion at los­ing a se­ries of elec­tions un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Paray, who is con­test­ing the post of deputy po­lit­i­cal leader said yes­ter­day that he was not per­turbed by Row­ley’s sup­port for Per­sad-Biss­esar’s con­tin­ued lead­er­ship.

“Par­lia­men­tary pic­cong is to be ex­pect­ed, the PNM con­tin­ues to be our com­mon en­e­my so I get no joy at any time Dr Row­ley says any­thing against any of my col­leagues in the Par­lia­ment. The en­e­my is not the UNC, it is not my col­leagues,” Paray said.

Paray as­sert­ed that with less than one week un­til the UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tion, he was con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry for his slate against mem­bers of the Star slate.

“The team is very mo­ti­vat­ed, we are out across every con­stituen­cy and the feel­ing is that we are in for a large win on Sat­ur­day and as leader of the slate I speak to the can­di­dates and en­cour­age them to meet the mem­ber­ship and I think the coun­try is in for a sur­prise.”

Ef­forts to con­tact Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day about the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments were un­suc­cess­ful.