Former West Indies captain Dwayne Bravo last night made a special appearance at the United National Congress’ Monday Night Forum in Debe, hugging Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar at the end of her speech. Bravo, who recently announced his retirement from Test cricket after being left out of the West Indies’ World Cup team for leading the walkout of the India tour, surprised many in the crowd when he turned up on stage after Persad-Bissessar delivered the feature address, hugged her and flashed the “V” for victory sign.
With supporters cheering loudly and waving flags, he then hugged Housing Minister Roodal Moonilal before making his way off the stage. After the forum was over Bravo quickly retreated to the back of the stage where he met a few fans before leaving. Bravo is a friend of newly-appointed Sports Minister Brent Sancho and the two have been seen hanging out at events together.
Moments before, Persad-Bissessar promised not to waste any time on the People’s National Movement. This seemed to move away from previous meetings in which she openly attacked PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley and PRO Faris Al-Rawi. She told the crowd though that Government was looking ahead to tomorrow’s motion of no confidence debate against Rowley, and called on supporters to show their support outside the Parliament as Moonilal pilots the motion.
But soon after she showed the crowd a huge red file of documents before promising to reveal all on what she called Marlenegate, in an apparent reference to PNM Port-of-Spain South MP Marlene McDonald. Clarifying that it was not Local Government Minister Marlene Coudray, she said, “I have a file, which I will leave for another night. This file is called ‘Marlenegate.’
“I am not speaking about Marlene Coudray. As I said we have others to share with you at another time on another day. This and other gates we will provide to you as we expose the Opposition for the hypocrisy, for the double standard and for their incapability of ever governing Trinidad and Tobago.” She also promised to expose a MP who has the Parliament paying an employee who lives in the United States.
“On another night I want to ask which Member of Parliament has a worker working in their constituency collecting pay and that person is living in the United States of America,” she said.