Dear Editor,
By Raymond Ramcharitar
I saw a less-than-three-minute clip of Kamla Persad Bissessar being interviewed by CNC3’s Akash Samaroo. Assuming that is the whole interview (I couldn’t find a longer one), a few things come up. First, this is what you get from journalism in general, and the GML in particular, after years of firing the smartest and keeping what’s left over.
As to the other things, many obvious and relevant questions were not asked of the Opposition Leader in this rare exposure to the public eye.
1 You have lost two general elections and multiple other elections. Resignation after one defeat is the norm in the Westminster tradition, on which our system is based. Yet you refuse to leave. Explain how this aligns with your commitment to democracy?
2 Anticipating your response of “being elected” by the UNC membership, two things:
a. You were “elected” by about 10 percent of the membership (around 12,000), which makes it a farce. And there were many accusations of election rigging by other candidates. (THE UNC website has no information about party membership, or much of anything else, btw. I’m working with a number of 120,000 members.) b. Given recent trends, you are almost certain to lose the next election. The country knows this. Does this not make you a PNM agent?
3 You claim you did not know Rushton Paray was a PNM donor/financier, though he was vetted by your party for candidacy. Does this not mean, if more proof were needed, that you’re an incompetent leader? You also didn’t seem to know that one of your MPs’ letter of dismissal (from his job) for corruption was published in the Express before the 2020 election; that another was named in connection to, shall we say “activities” which might attract police attention; and that one has no visible qualification except that he carried your purse, and presumably a camera, during your “reign”.
4 Do you dispute that your leadership was so incompetent, it saw loss of a 29-12 majority without any significant constitutional change, the collapse of a coalition, and your major financier (Jack Warner) forming a party (the ILP) to keep you from winning? Why should you be trusted with leadership after that?
5 Do you dispute that you are probably the worst Opposition Leader in the country’s history? Worse than Capildeo, who wasn’t even here for most of his term? The PNM has no fear of you, ridicules and denigrates you without consequence. You are a national laughingstock, even, especially, among your own “loyalists” who routinely leak your personal details to scurrilous social media pages?
6 Is it true that many, if not all, donors have deserted the UNC because of your incompetence? Are the rumours that the UNC cannot pay its rent true?
As for the imbeciles who vote for Kamla and bawl like flogged jackasses about it, here’s what a vote for Kamla means:
Another PNM term in office
Escalating crime
Increased poverty
Collapse of state institutions
More home invasions
More suffering for women and children especially
More scapegoating of Indians when the PNM needs to channel its supporters’ rage
Taking Trinidad to a place it will take decades to return from
And, Kamla Klowns, you can’t blame the PNM. The PNM, doing just what it’s doing now, has run in multiple elections and beaten this tired, sick, incompetent woman every time. You open the door to pothongs, don’t complain when they bite you. Neither can you blame racism — there is Black on Indian racism, but I don’t think anyone hates Indians more than Kamla hates you, her supporters. Everything she is doing now is to get reparation for the humiliation she endured under Basdeo Panday, and presumably elsewhere. She enjoys seeing you suffer, your wives and daughters violated, and your children brutalised. This is a dangerous, sick woman.
In the words of Kamla’s Maha Guru, Panday: Put that in your smoke and pipe it.