POLITICAL leaders of the UNC and the National Transformation Alliance (NTA) both alleged that the PNM, through the Prime Minister, is hand picking police officers to go after its political opponents.

They made their statements at the podium during a joint political rally at the SWWTU Hall on Wrightson Road - calling the prime minister everything from a dictator to a political 'piper.'

'When Dr Keith Rowley said I was his biggest mistake, it was because I was not a political puppet,' NTA political leader Gary Griffith said.

'Rowley wanted a puppet he could control, he could not get that. During covid19 he wanted me to arrest people in their homes, in breach of their constitutional rights. I said no. He pumped $45 million into the police account and directed me and told me who to hire and to target political opponents in an investigation.'

'What that man has done is tantamount to dictatorship, when a prime minister believes he can control and direct police in the performance of their duties.'

Gary knocked Rowley's plans to have a vetted police unit to investigate misbehaviour in public office. He said there were already units like this but Rowley really wanted his own personal police unit.

'He wants control of the police service and that must not happen.'

Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar also raised the issue when she took the podium.

Citing allegations made by THA Chief Secretary Farley Augustine that there was a clandestine group of high-ranking officials working together in a conspiracy to tear him down.

Persad-Bissessar called on the officals, named by Augustine, to respond to the allegations.

'There is a whistle-blower who is coming forward and saying that he has been promised $275,000 to swear an affidavit to implicate Farley and others in the THA,' Persad-Bissessar said.

'I shared how the PNM attempted to buy votes and bribe people to jump ship and come into their camp. They will use anything they can against anyone they see as political opponents.'

'First it was Gary, then it was Farley, next it could be any one of you,' she said.

She called on supporters to vote against their children growing up in what she described as a police state - where they would have no rights and freedoms.

'We must vote against a hand-picked police 'mongoose gang' disguised as a vetted unit.'

NTA: We can't win alone

Griffith admitted that the NTA and the UNC would not be able to depose the PNM if they acted alone. He said the only way to remove the PNM was with a coalition as was done in the past.

'The PNM will always win if political parties do not unite,' he said.

'Every single time the parties unite - in 1986, 1995, 2010 in the general elections and in 2010 in the local government elections - the PNM is annihilated,'

'If anyone does not understand this, that means you do not understand the politics. It means you are questioning the judgment of your political leader and myself and more importantly it means you want Keith Rowley to continue to win.'

Speaking to