Gail Alexan­der

"He's done the best thing he could have done in T&T's in­ter­est."

That was PNM deputy leader Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald's re­sponse yes­ter­day to news the Prime Min­is­ter had ac­cept­ed Jack Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion.

MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah said: "Giv­en the ev­i­dence, there was lit­tle op­tion but to re­sign. But al­though he's no longer in Cab­i­net, he's not the on­ly one who's man­i­fest­ed bad gov­er­nance and there­fore the is­sues con­tin­ue."

Last night, Warn­er im­me­di­ate­ly went to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in Port-of-Spain, packed up his things and re­moved them, aides said.

For­mer jour­nal­ist Fran­cis Joseph, who was Warn­er's min­is­te­r­i­al ad­vis­er, re­mains with the min­istry, it was con­firmed.

It is un­cer­tain, how­ev­er, if Joseph will re­main with in­com­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Em­manuel George.

Mean­while, Warn­er's UNC Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy has at­tacked the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) for its calls on Sat­ur­day for Warn­er to re­sign.

The unit, stand­ing in sup­port of Warn­er, called for the im­me­di­ate dis­missal of COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har from PP.

The UNC Ch­agua­nas West's state­ment added: "For a mi­nor­i­ty leader as Ra­mad­har, who could bare­ly muster 3,000 votes na­tion­al­ly for COP lead­er­ship, to call on Jack Warn­er, who at­tract­ed more than 12000 votes, to re­sign, has to be the biggest po­lit­i­cal joke of the year."

The unit claimed Warn­er had helped Ra­mad­har's own con­stituents, who "can­not see him."

The state­ment added: "If any­one must go, it's Ra­mad­har. He brings no val­ue in com­par­i­son to our MP and of­fers no re­lief to the peo­ple he was elect­ed to serve. We, the con­stituents of Ch­agua­nas West, will not re­main silent. We will nev­er stand still while COP at­tempts to de­stroy our MP."

The unit said Ra­mad­har's press re­lease was "rude and dis­re­spect­ful and is a clear in­di­ca­tion that not on­ly has the lead­er­ship of the COP de­clared war against our MP, but al­so against the 19,000 con­stituents who vot­ed for him."

Fail­ure to with­draw the COP's state­ment in the press re­lease, the unit stat­ed: "Ch­agua­nas West will nev­er be a zone of com­fort or peace for COP and their di­vi­sive lead­er­ship."

Af­ter news of Warn­er's res­ig­na­tion broke, Ch­agua­nas West mem­bers were re­port­ed to be cry­ing and dis­tressed last night.