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Friday, July 11, 2025

UNC Hijacked

Vas­ant be­ing silent­ly backed

by

20140126

A fac­tion with­in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) is back­ing Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath to chal­lenge Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions.The min­is­ter, Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands, has the bless­ings of for­mer leader Bas­deo Pan­day and for­mer par­ty chair­man Jack Warn­er.Bharath is qui­et­ly mak­ing in­roads in Fe­lic­i­ty, in Warn­er's Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy, and has been in­volved in small, low-key meet-and-greets with the res­i­dents since De­cem­ber.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has giv­en her bless­ings to Bharath to start cam­paign­ing in Cha­gaua­nas West, in prepa­ra­tion for the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.They spec­u­late that un­know­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Warn­er has al­so giv­en his bless­ings and sup­port to Bharath since there is a plan for Warn­er to re­unite with the UNC un­der new man­age­ment.

Peo­ple close to the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, but said Warn­er "had to be aware" of the walk­a­bouts as he (Warn­er) is a "hands-on rep­re­sen­ta­tive" and is al­ways aware of what was hap­pen­ing in his con­stituen­cy."Warn­er can­not say he does not know. Noth­ing goes on in his con­stituen­cy that he does not know about," one par­ty in­sid­er said.As the par­ty pre­pares not on­ly for its own in­ter­nal elec­tions but for the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tions, the UNC is said to be look­ing at re­mov­ing some min­is­ters from the line-up.

One min­is­ter ru­moured to get the axe is Min­is­ter of Tourism Stephen Cadiz. Sources said they were like­ly to lose the seat if Cadiz con­tests."See? That ties in with what I'm say­ing. The min­is­ter (name called) walk­ing in Jack con­stituen­cy with Jack bless­ing, be­cause Jack look­ing to try for Ch­agua­nas East in­stead and give his bless­ings to (name called) to take over Ch­agua­nas West," he said.

Jack: That is fool­ish talk;Vas­ant don't have what it takes

Con­tact­ed, Warn­er told the Sun­day Guardian, "That is fool­ish talk."You should not write any and every fool­ish­ness you hear. If, how­ev­er, you do per­sist to write, then all I have to ask is that you quote what I have said."When told that the in­for­ma­tion came from with­in the UNC, but out­side of the al­leged ca­bal, he then ad­mit­ted that he had heard that Bharath was go­ing to con­test the lead­er­ship."I am aware of that, but it will burn it­self out," he said.

Warn­er said he did not think Bharath had what it takes to take over the UNC."Not in our col­lec­tive life­time," he said.

Bharath had lead­er­shipaspi­ra­tions in 2010

The Sun­day Guardian un­der­stands that Bharath had lead­er­ship as­pi­ra­tions dur­ing the 2010 lead­er­ship elec­tions. He was al­so be­ing groomed by Pan­day for lead­er­ship, par­ty sources said. Bharath, the Sun­day Guardian was told, even with­held his sup­port from Per­sad-Bisses­sar and on­ly grudg­ing­ly vot­ed against Pan­day.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view on Thurs­day, Pan­day said he too had heard the ru­mour that Bharath was go­ing to toss his hat in the elec­tion ring. He said every politi­cian had as­pi­ra­tions to be­come leader, but warned Bharath that the in­ter­nal elec­toral ma­chin­ery may be against him. "The 'ca­bal', if I may use that word, con­trols the bal­lot box­es, the trans­port of the bal­lot box­es, the stor­age of the bal­lot box­es af­ter the elec­tion. It is very dif­fi­cult to win against that," he said.

"That is his biggest chal­lenge," he said.He said dur­ing the build-up to the 2010 elec­tion, he was nev­er fur­nished with an elec­toral list­ing."They were the ones in con­trol," he said.Pan­day said the in­ter­nal elec­tions were al­ready over­due by a year, and it must be called be­fore the end of this month."I am con­cerned about the le­gal­i­ty of last year's post­pone­ment. The elec­tions are over­due, and the ques­tion now is whether they are hold­ing of­fice legal­ly," he said.

Vas­ant: I have been­walk­ing in Ch­agua­nas West

Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, mean­while, con­firmed that he has been walk­ing about in Warn­er's con­stituen­cy for just un­der a month.In a tele­phone in­ter­view on Fri­day, Bharath said Warn­er was aware of his pres­ence in the area and even pro­mot­ed it dur­ing one of his (Warn­er's) cot­tage meet­ings in the area.Bharath re­fused to com­ment on whether his pres­ence in the area was an in­dict­ment on Warn­er's rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

"I have no com­ment to make on that. At the end of the day, I am on very good terms with every min­is­ter," Bharath said.He al­so re­fused to com­ment on spec­u­la­tions that he would be con­test­ing the in­ter­nal lead­er­ship elec­tions which is ex­pect­ed to be called some­time this year."The date has not even been set yet," he said.When told that the Sun­day Guardian was in­formed that a fac­tion with­in the par­ty sup­port­ed him for the lead­er­ship role, he said "that is news to me."

He said the walk­a­bouts were more to gath­er in­for­ma­tion for the Gov­ern­ment as to where and who need­ed as­sis­tance in the area."I have been walk­ing around that area to as­sist the needy peo­ple."In the last month, Bharath has pro­vid­ed health sup­port for three chil­dren in the area, in­clud­ing one need­ing surgery for a cleft lip and palate."I am sim­ply lob­by­ing on their be­half."Bharath said he did not pro­mote or ad­ver­tise his mis­sion in the Ch­agua­nas West area, be­cause it was not about pol­i­tics but about get­ting the work done.

"There are many needy fam­i­lies in this area."Bharath's work is akin to that of a shad­ow min­is­ter. He said there was no sin­is­ter plan to hi­jack the con­stituen­cy from Warn­er.

This is not Bharath's first qui­et con­stituen­cy walk­a­bout. He did po­lit­i­cal walks in the St Au­gus­tine area for al­most one year be­fore for­mer MP for the area Win­ston Dook­er­an ran for the post. Due to the de­sire for a part­ner­ship, the sit­u­a­tion was fraught with con­fu­sion over which par­ty should be giv­en which safe seat to fight. In the end, the COP's Dook­er­an got the seat in front of Bharath.Bharath said his week­end walks will con­tin­ue in the area.

...now Club 2014 formed

A new group with­in the UNC, which is call­ing it­self Club 2014, is set to take over the lead­er­ship of the par­ty from PM Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.The group, which is made up of some key peo­ple in the UNC, has been formed to chal­lenge Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the par­ty's up­com­ing in­ter­nal elec­tions.A date for the elec­tion is yet to be an­nounced.The peo­ple who make up Club 2014, sources said, have in­for­ma­tion on the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tion process.

The group is be­ing fash­ioned af­ter the now de­funct Cau­cus for Love, Uni­ty and Broth­er­hood (Club 88), which was es­tab­lished by Bas­deo Pan­day.In 1988, Pan­day, along with Kelvin Ram­nath (de­ceased), John Humphrey and Trevor Su­dama were ex­pelled from the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion (NAR) af­ter a dis­agree­ment with its leader ANR Robin­son.Sources said Pan­day is al­so a part of Club 2014.Af­ter sev­er­ing ties with the NAR, Pan­day then found­ed Club 88, which lat­er be­came the UNC.

–Shal­iza Has­sanali


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