Gail Alexan­der

Di­vi­son­al heads of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple have been man­dat­ed to con­sult with their mem­bers na­tion­wide to as­cer­tain their views on the Clause 34 con­tro­ver­sy and whether they want out of the PP?coali­tion. The move was made at Mon­day's COP ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, se­nior COP?of­fi­cials said. At the five-hour meet­ing, the ma­jor­i­ty of the 26 mem­bers present ex­pressed con­ster­na­tion about the procla­ma­tion of Clause 34 and voiced the view the COP should ex­it the PP coali­tion. A few in­clud­ing PP?min­is­ters Dr Bhoe Tewarie and Rodger Samuel were, how­ev­er, not in favour. No of­fi­cial vote was tak­en. It was was al­so agreed an ac­tion plan would be de­vel­oped by a COP sub-com­mit­tee over the com­ing weeks to gauge mem­bers' views on coali­tion is­sues-from the Clause 34 is­sue to the bud­get, how to get the coali­tion func­tion­ing bet­ter and even on leav­ing the PP-and what di­rec­tion mem­bers want COP to pro­ceed in.

The views will then be tak­en back to the ex­ec­u­tive, it was con­firmed. The Clause 34 is­sue has par­tic­u­lar­ly re­in­forced fury in the COP on the way the part­ner­ship has gone. While COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har has toed the PP line man­dat­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, many COP mem­bers have in­creas­ing­ly called for the par­ty to take a stand on the di­rec­tion of the part­ner­ship. COP's North West rep­re­sen­ta­tive Rudy Hanamji said the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive or leader can­not de­cide to ex­it the coali­tion and de­ci­sion on is­sues had to be tak­en by the wider mem­ber­ship from the var­i­ous re­gions. Hanamji said mem­bers in his con­stituen­cy are con­cerned the UNC has not dealt with the part­ner­ship ac­cord­ing to the coali­tion's Fyz­abad Ac­cord.

He said: "We've had con­cerns on many is­sues from the Mar­lene Coudray mat­ter to the Jack Warn­er is­sue. Our mem­bers will meet soon, per­haps Sat­ur­day and dis­cuss views on every­thing they're con­cerned about with the coali­tion. It may not be a ques­tion of leav­ing, but more­so how to get peo­ple to fol­low the Fyz­abad Ac­cord." On the Clause 34 is­sue, Haman­ji said he per­son­al­ly felt heads should roll in the Cab­i­net. "If some­thing like that hap­pened in the busi­ness world, peo­ple would be held ac­count­able and re­lieved of du­ty even if pend­ing a probe of some kind. We need to hold our lead­ers ac­count­able oth­er­wise what's the use of Par­lia­ment?" he said.

COP pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Mahin­dra Dhani­ram who didn't at­tend Mon­day's meet­ing, agreed heads should roll on the Clause 34 is­sue. "The is­sue should be placed at the feet of those cul­pa­ble," he said. "I'm sure once de­ter­mined who is re­spon­si­ble, the Prime Min­is­ter will take what­ev­er ac­tion she feels nec­es­sary."