Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has se­cured the sup­port of six Op­po­si­tion MPs re­quest­ing that Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards ap­point her Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and re­move the in­cum­bent Bas­deo Pan­day.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was an­tic­i­pat­ing the sup­port of an­oth­er Op­po­si­tion MP af­ter Car­ni­val in her bid to as­sume the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader. There are 15 Op­po­si­tion MPs in the Low­er House and, there­fore, Per­sad-Bisses­sar needs at least sev­en of them to sup­port her in be­com­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader. Per­sad-Biss­esar con­firmed yes­ter­day that a let­ter to the Pres­i­dent call­ing on him to make her Op­po­si­tion Leader was draft­ed and that the let­ter took her "sev­en steps clos­er to be­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader." At a news-con­fer­ence at the UNC Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, Per­sad-Bisses­sar showed the let­ter to mem­bers of the me­dia. She used a sheet of white pa­per to con­ceal the rows of the sig­na­tures of the MPs giv­ing her sup­port to be­come Op­po­si­tion Leader.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clined to re­veal the MPs that aban­doned Pan­day in favour of sup­port­ing her for Op­po­si­tion Leader. She said that she pre­ferred to keep that in­for­ma­tion con­fi­den­tial. UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who was al­so present, dodged ques­tions about de­fect­ing from Pan­day's fac­tion and pledg­ing his sup­port to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. When asked whether he signed the let­ter, Mooni­lal made a plea for the pri­va­cy of the peo­ple who signed the let­ter to be re­spect­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar had in the past se­cured the sup­port of at least four Op­po­si­tion MPs–Jack Warn­er, Win­ston Pe­ters, Nizam Baksh and Har­ry Par­tap. At least sev­en Op­po­si­tion MPs at­tend­ed the cau­cus meet­ing. Among them in­clud­ed two MPs who were can­di­dates on Pan­day's slate in the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions–Chan­dresh Shar­ma and Roodal Mooni­lal. At­tempts to con­tact Pan­day were fu­tile.