WHO FCOKING VEX LORSE!
Kamla: Blame game not the way forward
November 5 general election
Richard Charan rcharan@trinidadexpress.com
Sunday, November 18th 2007
MOVING ON: Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar speaks during the meeting at Couva on Friday night. Photo: STEPHEN DOOBAY
Still stung by their General Election loss, politicians of the UNC-Alliance held a public meeting in Couva Friday night, where they accused pollsters, the mafia, the media, and the Congress of the People of conspiring to keep them from winning.
However, Siparia Member of Parliament Kamla Persad-Bissessar, said the COP has shared the same goal to unseat the People's National Movement, but simply had different ideas on how to do it.
She said she had no interest in casting blame, since "it will get us no way forward".
Instead, she said, the UNC-A needed to objectively analyse the reasons why the COP failed to unite in an arrangement that would have brought almost certain election victory.
The PNM swept to victory with 26 seats, the UNC got 15, and the COP none in the November 5 polls.
Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday has said that the COP was financed by the mafia to split the votes and ensure a PNM win.
Persad-Bissessar was the Opposition Leader in the last Parliamentary session. The Chief Whip job has been given to Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
At Friday's meeting held at the Couva South constituency office, Panday repeated that people who voted for the COP, PNM or who did not vote at all, were responsible for the murders and rapes that have happened since the November 5 polls.
And those who voted for the PNM to get a temporary job with the URP or CEPEP, Panday said, "tell your dead or brutalised friend or family that was the price I paid for your life. Less than 30 pieces of silver".
He said "and for those who voted for the COP because you hated Panday, when high prices hit you in the face, tell the grocer I come with pay with hatred of Panday.
And when your family is robbed or raped, tell them you did that to them because you wanted to spite Panday, or could not resist mafia money".
He said his statements was not out of bitterness or to hurt citizens.
"I tell you these things because I do not want them to con you again. I tell you these things because I love you".
Panday daughter, Oropouche West MP, Mickela Panday said COP supporters were fooled into believing their party could win, giving the PNM the chance to run away with the elections.
Couva South MP Kelvin Ramnath said elements in the media had worked to give the COP an unfair advantage and made him look bad because of a comment he made in a stump speech.
Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner said it was time the UNC formed its own daily newspaper because of the bias by newspapers and television stations, who favoured other political parties.
Chaguanas Mayor Suruj Rambachan said the pollsters had perpetrated a fraud on voters for which the country was now paying.
Losing UNC-A candidate for St Joseph Dr Carson Charles said the communications media had campaigned with pollsters and the COP to confuse his party's supporters.
And Maharaj said sections of the media had promoted the COP for a year and a half, and fooled the population into believing the elections was a race in which his party had no chance.
But Persad-Bissessar stayed away from recriminations.
She told supporters that there were people in all three parties who saw the dictatorial tendencies of Prime Minister Patrick Manning, and who wanted to put country first.
And she asked voters to "reflect deeply upon the lessons learnt from the recent elections and the importance of unity, where unity is not simply a strategy for a limited political objective".
She also spoke to COP supporters, saying "you shared our goal to remove the corrupt and incompetent PNM and bring back good governance to T&T. We had the same goal. But alas, we used separate vehicles to pursue this goal. And these separate vehicles never came together along the way. The end result is that divided we fell and victory was lost in elections 2007. But all is not lost".
In an interview after the meeting, Persad-Bissessar told a radio station, "if we cannot find a strategy to bring all of us together as we once were, we will continue to lose. We must put aside our differences".
Persad-Bissessar added, "I feel the time for casting blame has now gone. I think we must put that behind us. The blame game will get us no way forward. I am really not now interested in blaming anyone. It's happened already it's done. We move on."
