Winston “Gypsy” Peters yesterday resigned with immediate effect from Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s Cabinet, describing her as the “most ungrateful ingrate, if there was ever one, that I have ever met.”
Peters said he had made the decision because he could not in good conscience tell anyone to vote for Persad-Bissessar in the September 7 general election. He insisted, however, that it was not the end of his career in politics.
Peters made the announcement during a news conference at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, where he finally broke his silence on his rejection as the United National Congress’ candidate for the People’s Partnership in this general election.
Businessman Rushton Paray was eventually nominated as the Mayaro candidate.
Peters later said on radio that the UNC was dying and it would lose the election. He also announced his immediate resignation as a member of the UNC.
“And as of today I have tendered my resignation from the United National Congress and I have also tendered my resignation as a government minister from Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s Cabinet. I have divorced myself from the UNC."
In explaining the reason for his decision, Peters said for the past year and a half, Persad-Bissessar and others in Mayaro and Rio Claro had been undermining him.
Former UNC chairman and government minister Jack Warner, who resigned from the party in 2013, was present for Peters’ news conference.
Peters, like Warner previously, yesterday claimed that he had been instrumental in Persad-Bissessar becoming Prime Minister and leader of the UNC. This is why he said he “could not in good conscience tell anybody to vote for Kamla Persad-Bissessar. I never thought this day would come when I would stand here and say that.”
He said he was also not saying this because he was an angry man.
“I am saying this because it is logical,” he added.
Peters, however, said he was yet to determine his future in terms of joining another political party.
“As of now, I haven’t made up my mind to join any political party but Keith Rowley has been a friend of mine. The last person I thought was my friend was Kamla Persad-Bissessar and she is not.”
He said Rowley was his friend because his mother had fed him when he went to Port-of-Spain from Mayaro years ago. But he said he was happy that Rowley would have made him an offer to join the People’s National Movement.
Warner then reminded Peters that Rowley’s offer was made after UNC deputy political leader, Housing and Urban Development Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal, said he (Peters) was from the bottom of the barrel.
Peters, in turn, said Moonilal would see that “the bottom of the barrel will come up and move him from where he is.”
Asked what role he would be playing in the next 12 days of the campaign, Peters said he would be encouraging electors not to vote for Persad-Bissessar.
Peters said he was not a member of Warner’s Independent Liberal Party (ILP), but Warner was his family and friend. He said it was Warner who had invited him to return to T&T and get involved in politics years ago.
Reflecting on his campaign to get former prime minister Basdeo Panday removed as UNC leader years ago, Peters said he was sorry for doing that now, adding that Panday was “much better than Kamla Persad-Bissessar.”
He said one of the “crimes” he might have committed was in 2013 when he went to Warner’s celebration party at the ILP’s office after he won the July 2013 Chaguanas West by-election.
“I will never turn my back on Mr Warner, I am not going to. Neither would I turn my back on Keith Rowley as his mother fed me,” Peters insisted.
He said Warner was not invited to the news conference yesterday, but noted he was a newspaper publisher.
‘Kamla one-man show’
Asked about the controversial Section 34 passage in Parliament yesterday, Winston “Gypsy” Peters said every MP had supported the legislation, which was part of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Proceedings) Bill and that he was comfortable with it.
The legislation was later repealed following an emergency sitting of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Asked how would he now respond to claims he was a neemakaram, Peters said he would say, “It takes one to know one.”
On how he felt about having quit as minister and UNC member, Peters shouted, “I want to dance. I feel good.”
Peters was also asked if he would say, as he did in 1986 against George Chambers’ PNM, that the UNC ship was now sinking. He said he would say that it has water in it but he did not know if it would sink.
“Kamla Persad-Bissessar, as far as I am concerned, has become a one-man show and anytime people become that, it is time to give them a reality check and I think that she needs a reality check.”
He said Persad-Bissessar was “warm, but she is also a very deceitful person because anybody who can conceal that kind of deceit, there has to be some devious being living in you.”
Peters did not use the word cabal, but said, “There is an inner circle in the UNC and her inner circle helps to direct what her moves are.”
Earlier, Peters claimed that $5 million was paid by one person to become a UNC candidate. He also said after the screening exercise “seats were given to people to cover the wrong that was done somewhere else.” He indicated that one such example was the “putting Rodney Charles down in Naparima absurdity.”
Peters recalled Persad-Bissessar asking him if he would get vex if he were not chosen to contest the seat. Peters said he told her he would be very vex.