Gail Alexan­der

The Op­po­si­tion UNC has in­creased its cam­paign against Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee for Pres­i­dent, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, with state­ments by in­di­vid­ual MPs re­quest­ing Gov­ern­ment with­draw its nom­i­na­tion, con­sid­er the par­ty’s nom­i­nee Is­rael Khan, SC, or even some­one else.

The Op­po­si­tion has ob­ject­ed to Kan­ga­loo on the ba­sis of her be­ing an ac­tive politi­cian and pro­posed Khan ahead of next Fri­day’s vote by the Elec­toral Col­lege at Par­lia­ment.

UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal on Wednes­day called for a con­science vote by PNM Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans and In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors. An­oth­er leg of UNC’s “cam­paign” was launched yes­ter­day with UNC MP’s state­ments.

These al­so re­it­er­at­ed con­cerns about Kan­ga­loo, in­clud­ing pre­sid­ing over in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sions, ap­point­ment of In­de­pen­dents and her dis­missal of for­mer Cen­tral Bank gov­er­nor Jwala Ram­baran.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence yes­ter­day, UNC Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh said, “At Tues­day’s meet­ing of key con­stituen­cy so­cial and po­lit­i­cal stake­hold­ers, it was agreed the ap­point­ment opened a gate­way for a fur­ther as­sault on T&T’s democ­ra­cy and the ob­jec­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Of­fice of Pres­i­dent in­to a glo­ri­fied clerk for Gov­ern­ment’s po­lit­i­cal arm.”

He added, “What’s even more con­cern­ing is the root­ed­ness of Ms Kan­ga­loo’s fam­i­ly in Bal­isi­er House’s foun­da­tions. Her hus­band, at­tor­ney-at-law Ker­wyn Gar­cia, is the re­cip­i­ent of many briefs hand­ed to him by the PNM. Her fa­ther-in-law An­tho­ny Gar­cia was T&T’s sleepi­est Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter; her un­cle-in-law Noel Gar­cia con­tin­ues as Ude­cott chair­man.

“One won­ders what’s the re­al na­ture of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley and the Gar­cia-Kan­ga­loo fam­i­ly.

“With­out con­sen­sus on a can­di­date, and con­fi­dence in im­par­tial­i­ty or re­spect for the Op­po­si­tion and its con­stituen­cies, Dr Row­ley’s sus­pi­cious nom­i­na­tion of Sen­a­tor Kan­ga­loo promis­es to re­duce Pres­i­dent’s House in­to noth­ing but a ‘Kan­ga­loo court’.”

MP Lack­ram Bo­doe said the nom­i­na­tion flies in the face of the spir­it of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

“Our Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion of 1976 en­vis­aged the hold­er of the high­est of­fice of the land to be a per­son who is non-par­ti­san and who will bring the virtue of im­par­tial­i­ty to the of­fice.”

Say­ing the nom­i­na­tion will un­der­mine the Con­sti­tu­tion’s spir­it and in­ten­tion, Bo­doe added, “Our coun­try doesn’t need a prover­bial ‘Rub­ber Stamp’ for Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions and de­ci­sions—this is nev­er a good sign for democ­ra­cy.”

Bo­doe sup­port­ed UNC’s call for Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er its nom­i­nee, and to con­sid­er Khan, “and, if that per­son isn’t ac­cept­able to the Gov­ern­ment, to seek an­oth­er per­son whose im­par­tial­i­ty is un­ques­tioned.”

Dr Rai Rag­bir added, “Af­ter Wednes­day’s con­sul­ta­tions with con­stituents, the con­sen­sus giv­en is ‘no’ to Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo for Pres­i­dent.

“This has to be a clear slap in the face to Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituents and the na­tion... a clear act of po­lit­i­cal bias. We call on the Prime Min­is­ter to with­draw this nom­i­na­tion if he tru­ly val­ues democ­ra­cy and our Con­sti­tu­tion.”

MP Dave Tan­coo said, “The Pres­i­dent needs to be some­one with no po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tions, able to act in­de­pen­dent­ly, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en T&T’s eco­nom­ic and so­cial state. Ob­vi­ous­ly, this can­not be said of Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo.

“Cit­i­zens must con­sid­er whether the Pres­i­dent can be in­de­pen­dent, as there’s great fear and con­cern that the rights/priv­i­leges of cit­i­zens will now be put in­to jeop­ardy by a po­lit­i­cal­ly bi­ased Pres­i­dent. Giv­en the PM’s in­sis­tence with this clear­ly po­lit­i­cal­ly taint­ed nom­i­nee, the onus is on Ms Kan­ga­loo to re­ject this ap­point­ment.”

Mooni­lal, de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as “con­sti­tu­tion­al dic­ta­tor­ship,” claimed, “Ms Kan­ga­loo is a long-prac­tis­ing par­ti­san politi­cian, in ad­di­tion to which, she’s de­void of na­tion­al stature, the es­teem of her peers, and a body of pro­fes­sion­al work. She’s a run-of-the-mill PNM op­er­a­tive who’s risen through the ranks, even if it’s tak­en her many dif­fi­cult years to do so.”