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The Gov­ern­ment has re­ject­ed Op­po­si­tion claims that it in­ter­fered po­lit­i­cal­ly with the re­sults of the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta held last Sat­ur­day at Skin­ner Park, San Fer­nan­do.

Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin de­nied any in­volve­ment in un­der­min­ing ca­lyp­so­ni­ans who chose to per­form po­lit­i­cal com­men­tary, par­tic­u­lar­ly those crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment. She ar­gued that any per­cep­tion of po­lit­i­cal bias lies with the Op­po­si­tion.

“Ca­lyp­so and kaiso be­long to the coun­try, not to any po­lit­i­cal par­ty,” Ben­jamin said. “If there is po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, I would put that square­ly on the Op­po­si­tion, who like to feel ca­lyp­so be­longs to them. The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-Gov­ern­ment of to­day and this Cab­i­net have not in­ter­fered in any way.”