PM’s Independence messages draw mixed reactions

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s two In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages have drawn sharply dif­fer­ent re­ac­tions, with Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Mick­ela Pan­day crit­i­cis­ing what they de­scribed as di­vi­sive and po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed rhetoric, while po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed de­fend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s first mes­sage as an op­por­tu­ni­ty for ob­jec­tive re­flec­tion on the coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment.

In her first mes­sage, Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­flect­ed on Trinidad and To­ba­go’s con­di­tion at In­de­pen­dence, ar­gu­ing that Britain had left “a very pros­per­ous func­tion­ing coun­try.” She urged cit­i­zens to stop at­tribut­ing the coun­try’s present prob­lems to its colo­nial past.

Her sec­ond mes­sage, di­rect­ed specif­i­cal­ly to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress sup­port­ers, took a more po­lit­i­cal tone, with the Prime Min­is­ter speak­ing about the chal­lenges fac­ing her ad­min­is­tra­tion and urg­ing par­ty sup­port­ers to stand to­geth­er, us­ing the phrase “peace or to­tal war.”