Gail Alexan­der

Con­gress of the Peo­ple's Kevin Rati­ram says for­mer COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an had said he would con­sid­er an ap­peal for him to re­turn as leader when he was ap­proached about it a few weeks ago.Rati­ram said while he and a group had spo­ken to Dook­er­an on re­turn­ing, oth­ers had al­so spo­ken to Dook­er­an over a course of months. He said he felt Dook­er­an was the best choice for the par­ty's heal­ing.Rati­ram said, how­ev­er, that Dook­er­an's state­ment gave his rea­sons on why he chose to do oth­er­wise.

Rati­ram, who is an al­der­men in the San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion, said Dook­er­an's state­ment en­dorsed COP chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan and he al­so con­sid­ered her an ex­cel­lent choice for leader. He said he would sup­port her.He con­firmed he and oth­er mem­bers were cam­paign­ing for gen­er­al elec­tion in Seep­er­sad-Bachan's San Fer­nan­do West seat re­cent­ly.

COP ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Kirt Sin­nette said he would al­so back Seep­er­sad-Bachan for leader, as Dook­er­an al­ways urged COP to look for lead­ers and since T&T "be­lieved the COP had fall­en down due to Ra­mad­har's lead­er­ship."COP MP Rodger Samuel said he had not giv­en Dook­er­an's call for sup­port for Seep­er­sad-Bachan much thought."I'm sure oth­ers are putting up names like­wise. I'm just watch­ing to see who's in the race," he added.

Rudy Hanamji, Satu Ram­cha­ran and oth­ers who didn't sup­port Ra­mad­har, that in­cludes his broth­er Kishore on the ex­ec­u­tive, have not re­spond­ed on whether they would sup­port Seep­er­sad-Bachan over the in­cum­bent. COP sen­a­tors al­so have said where they would place their sup­port.