Resh­ma Ra­goonath

For the first time in 33 years, no mem­ber of the Pan­day clan will face the elec­torate in a gen­er­al elec­tion. The fi­nal straw came yes­ter­day when the two re­main­ing Pan­days, Mick­ela, daugh­ter of the par­ty's founder Bas­deo Pan­day, and her un­cle Sub­has were re­ject­ed as can­di­dates for the May 24 polls. UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar, af­ter an ad­dress to nom­i­nees, an­nounced the in­cum­bent Oropouche East MP (Mick­ela) and Princes Town North MP (Sub­has) were not se­lect­ed. She said new­com­ers Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, (Oropouche East) and for­mer Princes Town coun­cil­lor Nela Khan (Princes Town North) will re­place them. Per­sad-Bisses­sar who list­ed the UNC's slate of 23 can­di­dates to con­test the polls un­der a part­ner­ship agree­ment, de­nied that the re­jec­tion of the Pan­days had any­thing to do with vin­dic­tive­ness or spite. She said it had to do with putting for­ward the best pos­si­ble can­di­dates. "I sat on the screen­ing com­mit­tee and I was not of the view that there was any mass wipe out...The on­ly mass wipe out we are on, is we must wipe out (Patrick) Man­ning and his regime," she said. "This not for fame and glo­ry, but to be able to serve the peo­ple for the greater good to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for every­one, and those were the con­sid­er­a­tions of the screen­ing com­mit­tee."

Re­ject­ed but not de­ject­ed, in­cum­bent Princes Town North MP Sub­has Pan­day, promised: "We (Pan­days) will rise again." Sub­has, who had de­fied fam­i­ly in favour of par­ty, ex­pressed sur­prise at his omis­sion, but pledged to sup­port his par­ty. He said: "It was a sur­prise to me. Nela Khan was a sur­prise to me. I thought it was Nizam Baksh. "If I have to be sac­ri­ficed for the greater good for the re­moval of the PNM, I have no prob­lems," he added. He dis­missed claims that the Pan­day lega­cy was over. He said: "We are not out, we shall rise! We shall rise!" With re­spect to the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship, he un­der­scored: "They have a du­ty, a sa­cred du­ty to hold this to­geth­er and they can­not al­low it to fall apart, be­cause the PNM and every­body try­ing and they ex­pect this to fall apart.

Sub­has was among Op­po­si­tion MPs in the last Par­lia­ment and oth­er can­di­dates screened for the UNC, who were all sum­moned to a meet­ing at the Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, yes­ter­day, where the slate was re­vealed. The rev­e­la­tion was greet­ed with a mix­ture of joy, sad­ness and dis­ap­point­ment, es­pe­cial­ly from the Pan­days who had been the back­bone of op­po­si­tion pol­i­tics for sev­er­al decades. Their ex­clu­sion, iron­i­cal­ly, came ex­act­ly 21 years since the UNC was es­tab­lished on April 30, 1990, by Bas­deo Pan­day. The el­der Pan­day de­clined to of­fer him­self as a can­di­date and re­cant­ed on a de­ci­sion to con­test the Ch­agua­nas West seat held by Jack Warn­er. Pan­day has suc­cess­ful­ly won the Cou­va North seat since 1976. He was re­moved as both po­lit­i­cal and Op­po­si­tion Leader, af­ter the bit­ter­ly fought Jan­u­ary 24 UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions, by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. His suc­ces­sor in the elec­tion race is Ra­mona Ram­di­al. At a news con­fer­ence, af­ter a meet­ing of the UNC screen­ing com­mit­tee and na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­fend­ed the par­ty's choice of can­di­dates.

She ad­mit­ted that there would be hurt and dis­ap­point­ment, but, "I have gone for­ward af­ter long de­lib­er­a­tions by the screen­ing com­mit­tee, there­after with the ex­ec­u­tive, these de­ci­sions were not tak­en light­ly." She said the screen­ing com­mit­tee had de­cid­ed and the de­ci­sion was fi­nal. She said if they made the wrong de­ci­sions, "the peo­ple will judge us for that on May 24." Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "When you make po­lit­i­cal de­ci­sions, you will have to face the con­se­quences; the peo­ple will judge us for the de­ci­sions we make." She told the nom­i­nees who were not se­lect­ed they had three choic­es–to con­tin­ue to work with the par­ty and the can­di­date; to work with the par­ty; and to con­tin­ue to work for the par­ty.

Pan­day His­to­ry

Bas­deo Pan­day lost his de­posit in the first gen­er­al elec­tion he con­test­ed. Pan­day, just back from Eng­lish train­ing as an at­tor­ney, with cours­es in eco­nom­ics and the­atre, fought Na­pari­ma South, which was won by Al­loy Lequay. Con­test­ing on be­half of Work­ers and Farm­ers' Par­ty, Pan­day polled just 326 votes, 3.57 per cent of those cast. He for­feit­ed his de­posit. He made a stun­ning re­turn 10 years lat­er, this time as leader of the new­ly-mint­ed Unit­ed Labour Front. He whipped sev­en oth­er con­tenders at Cou­va North. Pan­day has held that seat since then, win­ning suc­ces­sive­ly in 1981, 1986, 1991, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2007. He was the sec­ond longest-serv­ing Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, who was first elect­ed to Par­lia­ment in 1971.