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In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors are push­ing back against the an­ti-gov­ern­ment la­bel at­trib­uted to them by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), with one sen­a­tor ask­ing that they re­frain from us­ing in­tim­i­da­tion to get their way.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira SC told Guardian Me­dia: “If the gov­ern­ment wants sup­port from the In­de­pen­dent bench, that’s easy, just give us co­gent, com­pelling and per­sua­sive ar­gu­ments. Some­how, I think that might work bet­ter than try­ing to de­mean and be­lit­tle us or via veiled threats and at­tempts at in­tim­i­da­tion.”

The UNC strong­ly crit­i­cised the In­de­pen­dent Sen­ate bench, ques­tion­ing their im­par­tial­i­ty and sug­gest­ing that the Pres­i­dent, known for her close ties to the PNM, strate­gi­cal­ly ap­point­ed them to un­der­mine the gov­ern­ment.