Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

The Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha (SDMS) says it will have a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship with the new­ly elect­ed Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gov­ern­ment.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, SDMS sec­re­tary gen­er­al Vi­jay Ma­haraj in­sist­ed his or­gan­i­sa­tion does not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty and his mem­ber­ship is free to choose their af­fil­i­a­tion.

Ma­haraj told Guardian Me­dia, “We are not aligned to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty. We work with any gov­ern­ment that is in place. I wish to con­grat­u­late the UNC on their re­sound­ing vic­to­ry, and I wish to con­grat­u­late Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her mag­nif­i­cent come­back and in that vein, we will be work­ing with the UNC go­ing for­ward. We have worked with every gov­ern­ment, some hos­tile and some very friend­ly. I’m sure we will have a very cor­dial re­la­tion­ship go­ing for­ward.”

Mean­while, Ro­man Catholic Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don has called on the na­tion to de­com­press af­ter a rig­or­ous po­lit­i­cal sea­son which cul­mi­nat­ed on Mon­day night.

Speak­ing af­ter de­liv­er­ing his fi­nal bless­ing at morn­ing Mass yes­ter­day at Arch­bish­op’s Chapel, Port-of-Spain, Gor­don said T&T must now put the elec­tion be­hind them and work to­wards re­build­ing the na­tion.

The Arch­bish­op said, “Up un­til Sun­day, we had red, green, blue, and all sorts of colours to which we were com­mit­ted, and now we have one colour that we are com­mit­ted to; that is the re­build­ing of T&T around the gov­ern­ment that God has giv­en to us.”

He added, “It is im­por­tant with all the hype, the emo­tions, all the rhetoric, every­thing that has gone on in the last five or six weeks, it is im­por­tant now for us to detox and come back to the recog­ni­tion that there is on­ly one moth­er and that is Moth­er Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Mean­while, the Syn­od of the Pres­by­ter­ian Church of T&T (PCTT) has called for the new UNC gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise eco­nom­ic growth, an in­clu­sive form of gov­er­nance, se­cu­ri­ty, eq­ui­ty and rule of law and to in­vest in ed­u­ca­tion, health­care and na­tion­al in­fra­struc­ture.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, the Pres­by­ter­ian Church said, “We call up­on all cit­i­zens, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion, to move for­ward in uni­ty, em­brac­ing the out­come of the elec­tion with ma­tu­ri­ty, and work­ing to­geth­er to build a so­ci­ety of peace, dig­ni­ty, and shared pros­per­i­ty.”

Hin­du or­gan­i­sa­tion SWA­HA al­so ex­tend­ed its con­grat­u­la­tions to Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC on the vic­to­ry.

In a state­ment, SWA­HA said, “This vic­to­ry re­flects the over­whelm­ing sup­port and con­fi­dence the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go have placed in your lead­er­ship and vi­sion for the fu­ture. May the Di­vine grant you wis­dom, strength and un­bound­ed suc­cess as you guide our na­tion to­wards progress and uni­ty.”

Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al of the An­ju­man Sun­nat-ul-Ja­maat As­so­ci­a­tion (AS­JA), Imam Ahamad Ho­sein, said while the or­gan­i­sa­tion does not sup­port any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, it ex­tend­ed its con­grat­u­la­tions to the in­com­ing gov­ern­ment.

He added, “We con­grat­u­late Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her vic­to­ry. We pray that God bless­es us, and she does her work con­sci­en­tious­ly so we would have a bet­ter coun­try.”

He said the new gov­ern­ment must fo­cus on the ar­eas of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and ed­u­ca­tion, which he deemed as “very im­por­tant” right now.