Thursday 25th December 2014 Ricardo Gladiator Welch Added Express Story By Joel Julien PHILLIP ALEXANDER CALLS ON MIN. BHARATH TO APOLOGISE POLITICAL analyst Dr Winford James has described the erection of billboards bearing Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s image wishing citizens a Merry Christmas as a “new dimension of political propaganda” in this country. James questioned if it was an attempt to “deify” Persad-Bissessar in time for next year’s general election. Billboards bearing Persad-Bissessar’s image wishing T&T a Merry Christmas and a bright and prosperous New Year are being erected late at night along highway shoulders and have been seen along the Solomon Hochoy and Uriah Butler highways. “That troubles me, I don’t understand why the people are putting up these things in the dead of the night, it is almost as if they know that there is something surreptitious about it, something wrong about it,” James told the Express in a telephone interview yesterday. “This is a new dimension in our politics, in our political propaganda.” “Now we know that an election is coming up don’t we ? I don’t know if the prime minister is paving the way to deify herself, so to speak, to put her image in everybody’s head that she is it,” James said. James questioned if the billboards were “necessary” as he also noted former prime minister Basdeo Panday “her (Persad-Bissessar’s) former political leader condemned it”. James said in addition to the billboards, Persad-Bissessar’s image was being plastered on all sorts of paraphernalia including cups and cards that were being handed to citizens. “Gift giving is a perennial thing but it is another thing to plaster your image all over the place? Why does gift giving have to be accompanied by that sort of behaviour and that is the problem,” James said. RAGOONATH: JUST THE BEGINNING Dr Bishnu Ragoonath, head of The University of the West Indies’ Department of Political Science said he believes the billboards are just the beginning as the country prepares for next year’s general election. “I expect those billboards and whatever else will probably be used later on as part of the campaign, the real campaign. They are using it for the Christmas greeting but I expect that the real campaign, when it comes around, those billboards will be used for that reason,” he said. Ragoonath said the country can expect more of the same from all political parties in the build-up to next year’s general election. “We will see plenty of those things on both sides of the political spectrum,” Ragoonath said. PARTNERSHIP SUPPORTER: VASANT SHOULD APOLOGISE Self-proclaimed social and political activist Phillip Edward Alexander, a supporter of the People’s Partnership, yesterday voiced his disapproval of the billboards. “I’m sorry, I am a supporter of the People’s Partnership Government but Vasant Bharath, those billboard ads venerating the Prime Minister are a frivolous waste of taxpayer funds and an abuse of public office,” Alexander stated. Alexander took Communications Minister Bharath to task for his defence of the initiative. “Your disdainful comment that they ‘only cost sixty thousand dollars’ shows how dramatically out of touch you are with the masses, to whom sixty thousand dollars is a lot of money,” Alexander stated. “To refer to the public push back against this obscene and disgusting waste of essential resources as ‘silly season’ is to trivialise public opinion and shows a heartlessness we have not seen in this country for a long time,” he stated. Alexander likened the billboards and Bharath’s defence to that of former sport minister Gary Hunt and the $2 million flag bought during the Patrick Manning led-People’s National Movement government. “I put to you Vasant that you owe the people of this country a speedy and contrite apology, and you should dig around in quick fashion to find a ‘knight in shining armour’, one of the party’s mega-bucks financiers to underwrite this cost of this open politicking and take the burden off of the taxpayers who did not elect the PPG to office to have public funds misused on idol worship and veneration,” Alexander stated.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 09:11:51 +0000
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