Yvonne Ba­boolal

The bat­tle for lead­er­ship of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) took on the tone of a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign at the par­ty's Char­lieville Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre yes­ter­day, as four can­di­dates filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.Shout­ing bands of plac­ard-bear­ing sup­port­ers fol­lowed two can­di­dates, par­ty chair Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan and deputy leader Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas, up­stairs in­to the of­fice.

In­cum­bent leader Prakash Ra­mad­har had per­haps the qui­etest en­try. Ru­fus Adol­phus Fos­ter, talk­ing tough, went with on­ly two peo­ple, who said not a word.The three chal­lengers ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the present lead­er­ship.The COP is one of five par­ties in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship coali­tion Gov­ern­ment.Its June 29 lead­er­ship elec­tions come in the midst of com­plaints about Ra­mad­har's lead­er­ship style and spec­u­la­tion over whether the COP will re­main with the part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment or pull out.

Ra­mad­har won the 2011 in­ter­nal elec­tions against can­di­dates Ver­non de Li­ma, Nali­ni Di­al and Anil Roberts.The par­ty shot in­to the lime­light re­cent­ly when the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive de­cid­ed to sus­pend ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber and Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts, over the con­tro­ver­sial "gan­ja video" which shows a man re­sem­bling a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter rolling a sub­stance be­lieved to be mar­i­jua­na in a cig­a­rette with two women in a ho­tel room.

Dr Lin­coln Dou­glas

Big sup­port for Dou­glas

Shout­ing, "The man to take us to vic­to­ry!" a band of about 20 plac­ard-bear­ing sup­port­ers of COP deputy leader Dou­glas, from his con­stituen­cy of Lopinot/Bon Air West, went up the stairs of the COP's of­fice around 11.30 am."The man to take the COP, who they say­ing is dead, to take us to vic­to­ry," bel­lowed Car­malit­ta McGuirk, the chief shouter.They all wore jer­seys with Dou­glas's face print­ed on them with the words, "We par­ty, We MP, We leader."

Two women opened a ban­ner that stretched over a good part of the width of the of­fice."If we had a big­ger area we would have brought about 200 or 300 peo­ple," one said.McGuirk, a COP field of­fi­cer, said, "Peo­ple on the ground say­ing the COP dead. We need some­one with a strong voice that will be heard in the Part­ner­ship."Car­olyn is a good woman but I don't think she has the voice to take us to vic­to­ry."Prakash is al­so a good man but peo­ple are say­ing the COP is dead be­cause we have a weak leader."

Dou­glas said the COP was look­ing for a good leader and if he won he would show what that was all about."The kind of leader that is re­quired is some­one with the abil­i­ty to bring dis­parate groups to­geth­er and ne­go­ti­ate," he said on the role of a par­ty in a coali­tion struc­ture. "That's what I think is a pri­or­i­ty right now."

Prakash ra­mad­har

Prakash leavesit to vot­ers

In­cum­bent leader Prakash Ra­mad­har said it was the elec­torate that had to de­cide whether it want­ed a leader who was diplo­mat­ic, wise, cool-head­ed and re­strained, or ac­ri­mo­nious and quar­rel­some.The tem­pera­ment of a leader was crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant, said Ra­mad­har, who was ac­com­pa­nied by his wife to file his nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.A good leader must be able to play on any field, rise to any oc­ca­sion and give the right dose of med­i­cine at the right time.

Ra­mad­har said he had been en­dur­ing short-term pain for long-term gain. Dis­miss­ing crit­i­cism of his lead­er­ship style, he said it was a very loud but small group which felt the COP should break free from the Part­ner­ship and go in­to pris­tine glo­ry.He said he was not dis­ap­point­ed that three can­di­dates were run­ning against him, but looked for­ward to a healthy de­bate, and ex­pect­ed and in­tend­ed to win the elec­tion.

Car­olynseep­er­sad-Bachan

Car­olyn wants par­ty strong again

A small group of Seep­er­sad-Bachan sup­port­ers as­sem­bled at the front of Cen­tral Bar and Roti Shop around 12.40 pm, op­po­site the COP of­fice, and hand­ed out jer­seys with her face print­ed on them from a pile on a ta­ble.A flur­ry of ex­cite­ment filled the of­fice which was not ev­i­dent at the ar­rival of the oth­er can­di­dates.A man waltzed in singing, "We go­ing and elect the Car­olyn."A voice shout­ed from down­stairs, "She reach!" fol­lowed by a burst of chant­i­ng.

"Who en­dorse Car­olyn? Dook­er­an!"A flash of shock­ing pink then ap­peared at the top of the stairs and a smil­ing Seep­er­sad-Bachan emerged, hold­ing her hus­band Sureash's hand.Af­ter she filed her nom­i­na­tion pa­pers, with se­nior par­ty mem­bers Wen­dell Ever­s­ley and at­tor­ney Kevin Rat­ti­ram hov­er­ing near­by, she told the me­dia she was hum­bled by the en­thu­si­asm shown for her. She said her cam­paign for lead­er­ship be­gins to­day.Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she in­tend­ed to re­store the COP's iden­ti­ty.

"Some­times peo­ple feel we are too ide­al­is­tic, but I beg to dif­fer. I am go­ing to stand firm­ly by prin­ci­ple."She said this was not about "Car­olyn," but about team lead­er­ship, adding, "I am not a max­i­mum leader."Echo­ing Ra­mad­har's ear­li­er state­ment, she said strong part­ners will make a strong gov­ern­ment."Coali­tion gov­er­nance is here to stay and I in­tend to make the COP strong again."Sup­port­er Az­im Gu­lab then gave the me­dia copies of her six-page plan for the de­vo­lu­tion of gov­er­nance.

Ru­fus Fos­ter

Ru­fus un­hap­py­with lead­er­ship

Ru­fus Fos­ter, a mem­ber since 2006 and chair­man of the Arou­ca/Mal­oney con­stituen­cy, said the lead­er­ship was in a de­plorable state and mem­bers were be­wil­dered and stressed out.A re­tired De­fence Force staff sergeant, he said that's why he threw his hat in­to the ring, and if he were leader he would want all op­tions on the ta­ble, in­clud­ing that of join­ing the PNM.

Fos­ter hand­ed out copies of his bi­o­graph­i­cal da­ta, which said one of the ways he sought to im­prove the lives of peo­ple in the con­stituen­cy was through the Draughts & Check­ers As­so­ci­a­tion, of which he is pres­i­dent and CEO. He is al­so vice-pres­i­dent of the Pan Amer­i­can Draughts and Check­ers Fed­er­a­tion.Fos­ter said he speaks Span­ish flu­ent­ly, had just re­turned from va­ca­tion in Spain, and found him­self un­able to bear the thought of Ra­mad­har lead­ing the COP for an­oth­er term.