PRO for the United National Congress, Kirk Meighoo has come out swinging at Trinidad Express columnist Errol Pilgrim.
In a social media post, Meighoo hit out at Pilgrim for an article published yesterday, January 18 – which favored CNC3 journalist Natalie Legore, calling it simplistic and un-astute.
Meighoo wrote:
Pilgrim unsurprisingly hails Natalee Legore’s tirade as being “astute”, when in fact it was just the opposite: an uncritical parroting of Dr. Keith Rowley’s gratuitous – and wrong – comments about the UNC in his official statement on Donald Trump.
Indeed, it is certainly notable that the People’s National Movement – no defender of free speech – undertook the highly unusual exercise of issuing three separate Press Releases trying to protect Ms. Legore in her uncritical restatement of Dr. Rowley’s baseless and offensive assertions. This certainly appears to be the opposite of responsible, impartial journalism.
Let us be clear: There are marked differences between the Capitol Hill attacks in the US and the UNC’s 2020 post-election response.
By clear contrast, following the announcement of the 2020 Election results on 10 August 2020, all the UNC did, in accordance with due election procedure, was to request recounts in certain marginal seats.
For Ms. Legore to therefore associate, impute and equate the UNC’s lawful conduct post-election with the unlawful and egregious events of the US Capitol Hill attack is irresponsible, erroneous, reckless and demonstrates a grave betrayal of her duty as a member of the media.
We note Guardian Media Limited has supported in writing Ms. Legore’s slander and now, unsurprisingly, so does Errol Pilgrim.
As far as the post-2015 election results are concerned, surely Mr. Pilgrim must know that the 2015 High Court Judgement declared the EBC’s actions “illegal and contrary to the Election Rules”?
And I cannot imagine that Mr. Pilgrim is unaware of the long, but ultimately successful, struggle to get rid of the voting machines, even becoming a demand of the anti-PNM Black Power movement, resulting in the No-Vote election boycott of 1971?
Certainly, it requires a great stretch of the imagination – and quite a dogged determination – to equate Kamla Persad-Bissessar with Donald Trump, or UNC supporters to a mob. It would yield much better results to look to Keith Rowley, Fitzgerald Hinds, and other PNM minions for valid parallels. Nobody acts more destructively than the PNM in Opposition.
In Government, Keith Rowley has pursued a sustained agenda to marginalise and even eliminate the Opposition from its constitutional role in our system of Parliamentary democracy, to a system where the Executive functions without any Opposition.
Pilgrim’s and Legore’s unprofessionalism, bias, and not-so-hidden partisanship becomes much more dangerous, when seen in its fuller context.
The UNC supports every citizen’s right to hold and express their political points of view, whatever they may be. However, we ask them to declare their hands, and to not deceive their readership into believing that this is anything objective or “astute”.
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