Shas­tri Boodan

UNC Leader Bas­deo Pan­day ap­pears to have giv­en his deputy Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the cold shoul­der at the par­ty's Mon­day Night Peo­ple's Fo­rum at the Or­ange Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre. Per­sad-Bisses­sar ar­rived be­fore Pan­day for the meet­ing. She was greet­ed by sup­port­ers bear­ing plac­ards both sup­port­ing and ask­ing for the re­moval of Pan­day as the par­ty's po­lit­i­cal leader. Pan­day lat­er made his way in­to the hall, quick­ly shook Per­sad-Bisses­sar's hand, then took his seat. Pan­day's daugh­ter Mick­ela, the Oropouche West MP, sat be­tween her fa­ther and Per­sad-Bisses­sar. When Per­sad-Bisses­sar fin­ished speak­ing, Pan­day shook her hand with­out look­ing at her.

On­ly at the end of the meet­ing, when asked for a pho­to by a news­pa­per pho­tog­ra­ph­er did Pan­day and Per­sad-Bisses­sar smile and shake hands again. Pan­day said he was con­test­ing the post of leader of the UNC at the par­ty's up­com­ing elec­tions on Jan­u­ary 24. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would de­cide on Fri­day if she would al­so con­test for the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader. In his ad­dress on Mon­day, Pan­day spoke at length on the need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. He said uni­ty was nec­es­sary for the op­po­si­tion forces to move in­to Gov­ern­ment. How­ev­er, the UNC boss said he has been mak­ing sev­er­al at­tempts to have uni­ty talks with Win­ston Dook­er­an, the COP leader. He said these have so far proven fu­tile. Pan­day sug­gest­ed that Dook­er­an was re­fus­ing to an­swer his let­ters or, prob­a­bly, wait­ing on Pan­day's ex­it as the UNC leader be­fore he talked with the UNC.

He said: "Maybe he is wait­ing for a change in the lead­er­ship where he can meet with some­one he be­lieves he could wrap around his hand." Pan­day said if Dook­er­an and oth­er lead­ers did not want uni­ty at the lead­er­ship lev­el, the peo­ple would have to unite at the ground lev­el. He said for the in­ter­nal elec­tion, his slate for the ex­ec­u­tive would con­tain peo­ple who he could work with. Pan­day said if the mem­ber­ship of the par­ty did not want him come Jan­u­ary 24, he would go "with joy" in his heart. Pan­day ad­vised sup­port­ers against elect­ing the wrong leader "Do not let this par­ty fall in­to the hands of in­ter­na­tion­al con men. Do not let this par­ty fall un­to the hands of those who will col­lect mil­lions of dol­lars on your be­half, the par­ty's be­half and then refuse to ac­count for it."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told the me­dia she had not yet de­cid­ed whether or not she would be con­test­ing the post for the par­ty's lead­er­ship de­spite calls from sup­port­ers. "There have al­ways been peo­ple who sup­port me," she said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was still hav­ing con­sul­ta­tions on the mat­ter and if she de­cid­ed to take part in the bat­tle, the me­dia would be the first to know. In her ad­dress, she said: "Trans­for­ma­tion is com­ing as sure­ly as the ris­ing sun her­alds the dawn of a new day." She al­so apol­o­gised for not at­tend­ing the pre­vi­ous Mon­day night peo­ple's fo­rum held at the En­deav­our Hin­du School. She told the gath­er­ing that she did not want to fo­cus on is­sues sur­round­ing the par­ty's lead­er­ship but ad­dress mat­ters on crime and the lack of lead­er­ship in T&T.She said the Patrick Man­ning regime was turn­ing a blind eye to the pletho­ra of so­cial ills and cor­rup­tion fac­ing T&T.