PNM Women’s League condemns PM’s ‘cuff you down’ remark in Parliament

The Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Women’s League has con­demned a com­ment made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar dur­ing Fri­day’s sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, de­scrib­ing her words as “high­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate” and “whol­ly un­be­com­ing” of the coun­try’s leader.

The state­ment from the League fol­lowed a brief but tense ex­change be­tween Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Colm Im­bert. Af­ter Im­bert re­port­ed­ly point­ed in her di­rec­tion dur­ing de­bate, the Prime Min­is­ter fired back: “Don’t point at me, be­cause I’ll cuff you down.”

The Women’s League said it was “deeply con­cerned” by the re­mark, in­sist­ing that the Par­lia­ment—the na­tion’s high­est fo­rum for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic en­gage­ment—should nev­er be a place where “vi­o­lent ex­pres­sions, whether lit­er­al or im­plied, are nor­malised, en­cour­aged, or triv­i­alised.”