Four days after she announced the election date, Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar kicked off her 2015 campaign at Rienzi Complex on Monday night with the theme, On to Victory.
Dubbing the election the mother of all election battles, the PM warned supporters to brace themselves for a bruising three-month campaign and called on them not to weaken in the face of propaganda.
Over the past weeks the Persad-Bissessar and her Government have faced stinging criticism from her former party chairman and Cabinet minister Jack Warner, including allegations that he funded their 2010 election and the latest salvo that marijuana was found at her private home in Philippine.
The PM cautioned the sea of yellow supporters, assembled under a white tent in the backyard of the party’s headquarters at Couva, that it was not going to be an easy three months. She told them to be prepared for more vicious lies and fabrications.
She said the attacks had been the most vile and vicious in the history of politics in this country because her Government had outperformed at every level.
She vowed, however, “I will stand and fight with anyone, with everyone. I have no fear. The only thing I fear is my God.”
As she seeks a mandate to serve a second term in office, Persad-Bissessar emphasised that the only way to win was to remain united and not be distracted by the lies and propaganda.
She said the choice before the electorate was between the Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley and herself.
“That is a risk we cannot take,” she said, as she warned them not to be fooled by the false promises from the other side, pointing out that the opposition’s strategy was to cast fear and doubts in people’s mind.
She called on the electorate to judge the People’s National Movement (PNM) on their past performance. She said they squandered away the wealth when the country was prosperous. Under previous PNM regimes, she said, crime had people fleeing the country and unemployment created beggars out of mothers.
She said under a PP Government employment was above 94 per cent and in a second term they would continue their aggressive fight against crime, with a zero tolerance approach to this ill.
She said she committed her party to a diversified economy in a second term, emphasis on education and training and on more public/private sector partnerships.
The first public/private sector partnership with Republic Bank will be unveiled tomorrow when they turn the sod for a housing development in San Fernando.
She expressed fear that all of the social programmes would be cut should the PNM win the September 7 general election.
But speaking on CNC3’s Morning Brew yesterday, Rowley dismissed the PM’s suggestion, saying the PNM, if returned to power, would review all of the programmes to ensure that they were reaching those in need.
Persad-Bissessar also said since the Children’s Life Fund was implemented by her Government she had donated over $200,000 of her own money to that fund.