FORMER Trade and Industry Minister Stephen Cadiz said he was pleased with the outcome of the April 28 election as it meant the people of Trinidad and Tobago had said they were tired of the suffering they had endured under the People's National Movement (PNM).

Speaking to Newsday at the National Library and Information System Authority in Port of Spain on May 2, Cadiz said, “I was part of the first term and like everything else there are situations. But what the PNM promised in 2015, it never materialised, so after ten years of beating people into submission, people said, ‘No, we’re done with that.' And I was very pleased with the outcome of the election.

“We have been suffering for the last ten years from a government that had no respect for the people of this country, and that can be supported by numerous things that have happened. The famous ‘you ain’t riot yet’ and a whole host of things, the issue with the pensions and you giving yourself a $87,000 a month pension. You have unions who have been scrambling to have three three-year agreements settled and they can’t settle them as yet.”

He said the people felt the campaign run by the UNC and Kamla Persad-Bissessar, which emphasised inclusivity, was the better direction to go in. He said the appointment of John Jeremie as Attorney General was further proof of this direction.

“As far as the AG is concerned, you cannot be inclusive and exclusive at the same time and not include people at the same time. So the whole campaign was run on ‘When UNC wins, everybody wins,’ and everybody is just that, everybody. I think it was a good move on her part to actually do that. I think she got a lot of kudos for it. Yes, there are some dissenting voices, but where don’t we have dissenting voices?”

Asked about the many controversies in which Jeremie had been involved, Cadiz said, “Which one of us are perfect? That’s how I look at it. How many attorneys general did we go through between 2010 and 2015?

“Politics is a very fluid thing, and when she was sworn in, the speech that she gave sent a very clear message, to me, that she understood certain things that happened in 2010 and she was not prepared to see that happen again, and I say hats off to her.”

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