Beckles disappointed at PM’s support of Watts’ ‘attack’ on women

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says she is not sur­prised, but is “ex­cep­tion­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed” by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse to con­tro­ver­sial re­marks made by Sport and Youth Af­fairs Min­is­ter Phillip Watts about women in Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment me­dia con­fer­ence at the Red House, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Beck­les crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter for what she de­scribed as en­dors­ing Watts’ com­ments about the ap­pear­ance and moral val­ues of fe­male par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, as well as in­sin­u­a­tions re­gard­ing the sex­u­al con­duct of fe­male Op­po­si­tion mem­bers.

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She ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of fail­ing to con­demn the re­marks and in­stead es­ca­lat­ing the con­tro­ver­sy.