Party leaderships–including the UNC's–must guard against political "creepers and crawlers" who jumped the "queue" and entered a party if its stocks were high, COP's Nizam Mohammed warned yesterday.
Mohammed was commenting on the defection of COP's Anand Ramlogan to the UNC. Ramlogan appeared on UNC's Tabaquite platform last night. COP leader Winston Dookeran, declining to respond on the issue, said he did not know about the situation and would have to examine it. COP deputy Prakash Ramadhar, in Tobago, had no comment. Ramadhar laughed off the incident at last Sunday's COP unity conference when a member from the floor called on Dookeran to resign and let Ramadhar lead COP. But Mohammed yesterday had stern remarks for COP defectors. Mohammed also expressed concern about COP's Mervyn Assam who became a UNC Senator last week. Mohammed said: "Up to several weeks ago Assam was on a special COP strategy team for the East-West Corridor–meeting every Friday–and now he has up and gone to the UNC, knowledgeable of all of COP's information."
On the situation regarding Ramlogan, Mohammed added:
"There seems to be many front-line politicians who do not appreciate the delicate situations surrounding the unification process of opposition forces." Warning against self-seekers, Mohammed said: "Such persons would jump the queue and overtake others who laboured hard to make their party viable and attractive, creating disaffection and suspicion both in the party they leave and the other they enter. "History has shown such individuals do not have the people at heart and are only political opportunists." Mohammed said UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar must understand that her actions were "under close scrutiny," He added: "So she must first use people from the 13,000 who voted her into leadership and then the UNC rank and file who have stayed the course with that party. "It's petty for her advisers to encourage interference by COP self-seekers or PNM apologists. "(Former UNC leader ) Basdeo Panday understands the politics better than everyone so they can go ahead but Panday is waiting in the slips.
"He knows such pettiness breeds spite. So if we aren't careful we'll lose every hope and opportunity of unity and Bas will be back on top. Greed and ambition can prevent us getting anything off the ground." Mohammed added: "Some in the UNC have this belief they can get into Government all by themselves and this is so wrong. Remember, the UNC has split three times–in 2001, with Dookeran and on January 24." Mohammed said the UNC sent MP Winston Peters and general secretary Glen Ramadharsingh to COP's unity conference last Sunday. He added: "We saw a number of other UNC people present also and if things go right we can see a coming together sooner rather than later but not with this kind of jumping over that creates confusion."