Yvonne Webb

San Fer­nan­do West Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) sup­port­ers yes­ter­day called for the re­moval of their MP, Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, as they burnt T-shirts em­bla­zoned with her pho­to, and threat­ened to de­fect to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) if their protest was not heed­ed. The demon­stra­tion of dis­af­fec­tion took place yes­ter­day as close to 50 res­i­dents from Mara­bel­la on the Line staged a protest to pre­vent the open­ing of a con­stituen­cy sub-of­fice at the cor­ner of He­len and Mootoo Streets. Bish­op Jankie Raghu­nanan, field and re­search of­fi­cer for the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy, de­nied there were plans to open the of­fice yes­ter­day morn­ing. He said: "We came in­to Mara­bel­la West this morn­ing, at Mootoo Street, to have this of­fice open to serve the peo­ple of this con­stituen­cy. "It is not a for­mal open­ing. We came here this morn­ing just to say a prayer and set up to pre­pare for a for­mal open­ing lat­er." Plac­ards plas­tered on the front of the build­ing charged poor rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the MP and called for her to go.

The open­ing of the of­fice, the source of dis­con­tent, was the straw that broke the camel's back said Rod­ney Kunge­be­har­ry, a foun­da­tion mem­ber of the par­ty, who is known as "Mr COP." He re­cent­ly was in­volved in a pe­ti­tion of no con­fi­dence in UNC San Fer­nan­do coun­cil­lor Dar­ren McLeod. Kunge­be­har­ry said the act of open­ing the of­fice with­out con­sult­ing, in­form­ing or invit­ing COP sup­port­ers and the coun­cil­lor for the area, Glo­ria Cal­liste, was "in­sult­ing and dis­re­spect­ful." Jankie said he did not know whether Cal­liste was con­sult­ed about the MP's open­ing an of­fice in her dis­trict. He al­so said he did not know Cal­liste had an of­fice in the dis­trict. Cal­liste, the COP lo­cal gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Mara­bel­la West, pub­licly threat­ened to fol­low in the foot­steps of May­or Mar­lene Coudray, who de­fect­ed to the UNC. Cal­liste was not among the pro­test­ers.

At the scene of the demon­stra­tion Kunge­be­har­ry ac­cused Seep­er­sad-Bachan of be­ing an ab­sen­tee MP.

He said in the past two years, the on­ly time the COP fo­cused on San Fer­nan­do West was when Coudray joined the UNC and fought and won a place in that par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tion.

"We sup­port­ed the MP and helped her win the seat, but the on­ly help com­ing to the poor peo­ple on the Line is from Coun­cil­lor Cal­liste and the may­or," he added. He called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ho­n­our her cam­paign promise and move leg­is­la­tion to re­call non-per­form­ing elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Glen­ford Hold­er, a res­i­dent of the area, con­curred with Kunge­be­har­ry, adding: "She is bare­ly rep­re­sent­ing Mara­bel­la. All she say is the Line have plen­ty drugs, but she nev­er came back to as­sist the peo­ple." Kunge­be­har­ry said they were giv­ing COP's po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is va­ca­tion­ing over­seas, wo weeks to ad­dress their con­cerns, "or else we walk." Since the Coudray bomb­shell, lead­ers of the five coali­tion par­ties which make up the rul­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship have been en­gaged in talks to re­pair the fric­tion. Yes­ter­day, Jankie, who al­so fought the San Fer­nan­do West con­stituen­cy on a UNC tick­et be­fore Seep­er­sad-Bachan, said that rip­ple would not af­fect the part­ner­ship.