Shal­iza?Has­sanali

Fif­teen Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) coun­cil­lors and one may­or yes­ter­day threw their sup­port be­hind the par­ty's in­cum­bent chair­man, Joseph Toney. Toney will square off with Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan and at­tor­ney Rekha Ramjit in the Oc­to­ber 28 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

The coun­cil­lors are from the Ari­ma Bor­ough Coun­cil, Tu­na­puna/Pi­ar­co Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the San Juan/Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion. In en­dors­ing Toney at the Ari­ma Town Hall, Ari­ma May­or Ghas­san Youseph urged par­ty faith­ful to ral­ly be­hind Toney, who they felt was ca­pa­ble of bring­ing re­form to both pol­i­tics and gov­ern­ment.

Youseph said the COP should have a chair­man who is not in­volved in Cab­i­net and re­mains com­mit­ted to its mem­bers. Con­fi­dent that he would re­tain his po­si­tion as chair­man, Toney said he had re­ceived en­dorse­ments from sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als, some of whom he de­scribed as se­nior and in­flu­en­tial in the COP.

"When I got in­to the par­ty two years ago, the par­ty was bat­tling to en­sure that they are in­flu­en­tial with­in the Gov­ern­ment." Toney said in the last two years, he had made pro­nounce­ments about where the COP should and should not be. "I have de­fend­ed the par­ty. I have made the po­si­tion of the par­ty very clear. So much so, that the COP is an im­por­tant voice in the pol­i­tics of the coun­try."