Sascha Wil­son

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress deputy leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says sta­tis­tics show that po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day can­not win an­oth­er gen­er­al elec­tion. She said the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment was to blame be­cause they did a "hatch­et job" on Pan­day, caus­ing a steady de­cline in sup­port for him. Speak­ing at her cam­paign meet­ing in Preysal on Thurs­day night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar gave rea­sons why Pan­day was not the best per­son to lead the par­ty. "You see, the PNM did a hatch­et job on the man...They cre­at­ed all the mud-sling­ing and some of that mud stain him," she said.

"So whether it is true or not, the per­cep­tion in the

coun­try–and you know what they say per­cep­tion is every­thing–the per­cep­tion in the coun­try, let us be re­al, is that Mr Pan­day can­not win an elec­tion." And the two main is­sues in the in­ter­nal elec­tion, she said, were which can­di­date could lead the par­ty in­to gov­ern­ment and can unite op­po­si­tion forces. She said al­though Pan­day had been the "best Prime Min­is­ter in T&T and a good leader," the time has come for them to be­come the gov­ern­ment. "To the chief, I salute you and I thank you, but the time has come...We can no longer stay in op­po­si­tion. Our leader is con­tin­u­ing to lose sup­port, even with­in our own par­ty base," she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said when Pan­day was Prime Min­is­ter in 2000, he polled 14,383 votes, equiv­a­lent to 79 per cent of the votes in his con­stituen­cy. But, she said, a year lat­er af­ter a fall-out with his "best friend" Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj with Team Uni­ty, Pan­day's sup­port dropped by two per cent. There was lit­tle in­crease in 2002 elec­tion with 14,157 votes, she said. "But in 2007, we saw Mr Pan­day af­ter the in­ter­nal war with Con­gress of the Peo­ple, the sup­port de­clined so dra­mat­i­cal­ly in his own con­stituen­cy. He lost over 6,000 votes...He on­ly got 8,428 votes," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She point­ed out that the PNM can­di­date re­ceived 5,229, while the COP can­di­date got 4,070 votes. In that safe seat, she said, more than half of the peo­ple vot­ed against him.