Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har is hap­py with the new Cab­i­net re­align­ment, as he be­lieves the par­ty is now stronger in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) Gov­ern­ment. He was at the time speak­ing with the me­dia at a news con­fer­ence yes­ter­day that got off to a late start at the COP's Ca­roni Sa­van­nah Road, Ch­agua­nas, of­fice.

Ramah­dar said the COP would al­so fi­nal­ly get a may­or for the city of San Fer­nan­do. He said the par­ty now had ad­di­tion­al mem­bers in the Cab­i­net, in­clud­ing Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, the Min­is­ter of Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism; Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed; and Gan­ga Singh, the Min­is­ter of Wa­ter Re­sources and the En­vi­ron­ment.

"We feel now a bit more for­ti­fied. The Part­ner­ship has been strength­ened and we look for­ward to now be­ing able to de­liv­er from the COP's point of view," he said. The Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter, who re­tained his port­fo­lio in last Fri­day's Cab­i­net reshuf­fle, said San Fer­nan­do May­or Mar­lene Coudray's new post as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter has opened the way for the ap­point­ment of deputy may­or Dr Navi Mu­radali as may­or.

Ra­mad­har said as the law now op­er­ates, the deputy may­or would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be el­e­vat­ed to the may­oral post. He said the COP was ex­cit­ed about Mu­radali's pend­ing ap­point­ment. Ra­mad­har said the COP was al­so pleased with the ap­point­ment of Jack Warn­er as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. He said crime was one of the most im­por­tant is­sues to be dealt with and "we need much more to be done."