Yvonne Ba­boolal

The In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) will be look­ing at par­ties with­in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) coali­tion to forge an al­liance for the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. The ILP will al­so be look­ing at po­lit­i­cal par­ties out­side the coali­tion too.This was dis­closed yes­ter­day by new leader Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit in re­sponse to ques­tions from the T&T Guardian.Dis­miss­ing the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Ou­dit in­sist­ed the ILP, based on the re­sults of last's years lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, is T&T's third po­lit­i­cal force and is far from dor­mant.

"The ILP is the op­tion af­ter the PNM and the UNC," she said.Asked if the par­ty will join forces with the PNM or Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), she said they will be look­ing at the par­ties with­in the PP.But an al­liance with the PNM, with whom the ILP re­cent­ly marched in a Port-of-Spain demon­stra­tion or­ga­nized by the Joint Trade Union Move­ment, does not seem like­ly, Ou­dit said.

"The PNM has in­di­cat­ed it is a stand alone par­ty, win or lose. There­fore, there can be no ac­com­mo­da­tion there."Asked about the per­cep­tion the ILP was join­ing with the PNM be­cause mem­bers par­tic­i­pat­ed in the march, Ou­dit said it was not a PNM march, even though the PNM ap­peared as the largest group."It was a labour march in which many groups took part. We marched near the Agri­cul­ture So­ci­ety. It was a mis­con­cep­tion it was a PNM march," Ou­dit said.

Ou­dit was de­clared ILP leader on Mon­day as she was nom­i­nat­ed un­con­test­ed for the post in the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tions sched­uled for June 29.As leader, she said she will be seek­ing to ful­fill the par­ty's vi­sion, which is to fol­low in the foot­steps of coali­tion pol­i­tics around the world."I don't be­lieve any one par­ty has an­swers. I be­lieve many par­ties can work to­geth­er,"Ou­dit said, adding this type of coali­tion pol­i­tics was par­al­lel to pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

Asked if she was pre­pared to lead a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, Ou­dit said she be­lieved she was well poised. Her ex­pe­ri­ence as a for­mer ILP deputy leader was her train­ing, she said, since she was close­ly in­volved in the run­ning of the par­ty. She said she was in­volved in draft­ing the ILP's con­sti­tu­tion, prepar­ing its man­i­festo and or­ga­niz­ing meet­ings."I al­so served as deputy po­lit­i­cal leader un­der the UNC. Yes, I be­lieve I am very well poised to take up the man­tle," she said.

Asked about the sud­den emer­gence of fe­male lead­ers on the po­lit­i­cal scene and what this in­di­cat­ed, Ou­dit said lead­er­ship is not a gen­der is­sue."A good leader is nei­ther male nor fe­male."She ob­served, though, that it meant T&T was ma­tur­ing as a so­ci­ety.She said Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not do it by her­self, but would have been pro­pelled by peo­ple around her.

Not­ing she sup­port­ed Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan's bid for lead­er­ship of the COP, she said T&T seemed to be break­ing from a tra­di­tion that kept women seg­re­gat­ed."We have al­ready bro­ken the race bar­ri­er," she said, re­call­ing for­mer ILP leader Jack Warn­er's stint as UNC chair­man, which was sup­port­ed by a large seg­ment of the East In­di­an pop­u­la­tion.

Ou­dit based the ILP's strength on the 102,000 peo­ple who vot­ed for the par­ty in last year's lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions. She said there was a lull in the par­ty af­ter that (many mem­bers pulled out and re­turned to the UNC), but they picked up good steam in Jan­u­ary and have been qui­et­ly hold­ing cot­tage and plat­form for change move­ment meet­ings across the coun­try.About 200 peo­ple have been at­tend­ing the meet­ings, Ou­dit said. This was a good sign, she felt.

"To pull any­body out his house dur­ing the week, es­pe­cial­ly in a rur­al area, says some­thing."Ou­dit said the COP, part of the PP coali­tion, will cer­tain­ly have to an­swer for its stew­ard­ship in the Gov­ern­ment over the last four years.She added, "But I wouldn't colour any judg­ment on any­body seek­ing of­fice now."

Ou­dit was put for­ward as leader af­ter Warn­er, for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent, stepped down and in­di­cat­ed he was con­test­ing the post of chair­man. He, too, was de­clared chair­man on Mon­day af­ter no oth­er can­di­date con­test­ed the po­si­tion.Warn­er, for­mer UNC na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and in­cum­bent Ch­agua­nas West MP, formed the ILP af­ter he broke ties with the UNC and the PP last year.His move came af­ter a damn­ing Con­ca­caf re­port which told of fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety in the or­ga­ni­za­tion dur­ing his tenure there.