Panday: PNM, UNC take away hope, dignity

PATRIOTIC Front (PF) political leader Mickela Panday says the PNM and the UNC have taken away people's hope and dignity during their respective tenures in government.

She said this is all the more reason for the electorate to reject both parties on April 28.

Panday made these comments at a PF public meeting at Twin Walls, La Romaine on April 13.

She told the crowd about a recent walkout in Couva North which she is contesting in the election.

Panday's father, former prime minister Basdeo Panday, represented Couva North from September 24, 1976-April 8, 2010.

She said during her walkabout, she met many young people who told her they were deprived of opportunities to improve themselves.

Panday also told the crowd about deplorable roads, communities in the constituency being cut off and a lack of basic amenities such as a reliable supply of water.

"To see what Couva North has become would have broken my father's heart. There is nothing there. The people are completely neglected."

UNC deputy leader Jearlean John is the party's Couva North candidate.

Former MP Ravi Ratiram is not standing for re-election.

Panday said young people in Couva North, like other young people elsewhere in the country, were told to work hard, go to school and there would be opportunities for them.

She claimed both the PNM and the UNC did nothing to help them.

"We sold them a dream that these two parties have destroyed."

Panday had no problem with older people wishing to stay with one party till they die.

But she appealed to them, "Don't stand as an obstacle in the young people's way."

Recalling the PF was created by young people to dismantle the tribal politics nurtured by the PNM and UNC for decades, Panday said young people must be allowed to make their own choice on April 28, free from anyone else's influence.

She claimed older people have also been mistreated by both parties.

Panday told her audience about a poor family living in Oropouche East, with two of its members handicapped and another relative struggling to take care of them.

"Why do these parties insist of stripping people of their dignity and then throwing crumbs at them the last year of election? That is criminal."

Panday dismissed continued efforts by certain people to brand the PF as PNM-financed party and abuse her candidates in person and virtually.

She said the PF's 37 candidates are fighting a clean campaign and will continue to do so.

Panday condemned what she described as bullying tactics against the PF's Oropouche East candidate Danny Jadoonanan and his family by some of the party's political opponents.

"Tell me what we're doing wrong? We are exercising our right to fight for others."

Panday described people being employed by certain parties to use social media to attack their opponents as cowards.

"Trolls and keyboard warriors can't get out of their lonesome dark hole and come out and take some sun."

She advised PF candidates to be distracted by the tactics being employed by other parties to win votes.

Panday said the electorate has gotten used to either voting out the PNM or the UNC.

She told PF candidates, "When you go to see them, ask them to vote you in."

The PF, Panday continued, was not about offering empty promises or outright lies to the population.

She said the party was about action and rebuilding TT from the community level upwards.

Panday identified "operation safe zones", "prosperity through possibility" and "food security as national defence" as three priority initiatives the PF would focus on once elected to government to address crime, the economy and agriculture.