Richard Lord

?Promi­nent fig­ures in op­po­si­tion pol­i­tics went in­to a uni­ty meet­ing last night with a firm com­mit­ment to build a last­ing pact.

"We are en­gaged in a process of build­ing a sus­tain­able and durable po­lit­i­cal part­ner­ship that will en­dure for years to come," said Gan­ga Singh just be­fore the start of talks. Singh is lead­ing a three-mem­ber Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) team in talks with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who heads the three-man UNC team, al­so ex­pressed con­fi­dence about the suc­cess of the dis­cus­sions.

Mooni­lal said last night: "We ex­pect that tonight's dis­cus­sions would build con­sen­sus around con­crete pro­pos­als for the up­com­ing elec­toral cam­paigns and pro­vide for good gov­er­nance post elec­tion." The meet­ing at St Au­gus­tine is a pre­cur­sor to a planned meet­ing to­day be­tween UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and COP boss Win­ston Dook­er­an. In­sid­ers on both sides say they ex­pect that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Dook­er­an will fine-tune an elec­toral ac­cord.

Last night's meet­ing be­gan at 9 pm and in­clud­ed COP's Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith and Clyde Weath­er­head and UNC's Jack Warn­er and Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan. The UNC re­turns to St Au­gus­tine tonight for a pub­lic meet­ing at which trade union­ist David Ab­du­lah is ex­pect­ed to mount the podi­um. Con­stituen­cy in­cum­bent Vas­ant Bharath is an­oth­er list­ed speak­er.