Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress's (UNC) Cou­va North con­stituen­cy chair­man Or­lan­do Nages­sar said yes­ter­day made a call for a "com­pro­mise" on the par­ty's lead­er­ship con­test.His call cames 48 hours be­fore the par­ty's deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce his bid, to­mor­row, to con­test the lead­er­ship against in­cum­bent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

One-time UNC St Joseph can­di­date Ger­ry Yet­ming, tipped to be Mooni­lal's cam­paign man­ag­er, says in­cum­bent Per­sad-Bisses­sar "isn't ca­pa­ble of tak­ing the UNC for­ward at this stage."

Nages­sar, a for­mer may­or of Ch­agua­nas, said he was pre­pared to call for com­pro­mise on the lead­er­ship is­sue at last night's meet­ing at the Cou­va South of­fice, since he felt a lead­er­ship bat­tle would se­vere­ly frac­ture the par­ty.

Nages­sar spoke to the T&T Guardian ahead of the meet­ing last night. It was the sec­ond such meet­ing of MPs, the Op­po­si­tion whip, Sen­ate leader, cor­po­ra­tion chair­men and oth­er arms since the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship/UNC lost the Sep­tem­ber 7 gen­er­al elec­tion. It was pre­ced­ed by a UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing at Rien­zi Com­plex.

Par­ty in­sid­ers said the par­lia­men­tary arm meet­ing was ex­pect­ed to be heat­ed and calls were ex­pect­ed from the floor from "both sides" call­ing for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down as well as for Mooni­lal to shelve his bid. They not­ed that in the 2010 lead­er­ship elec­tion, a call had been made from the floor of a sim­i­lar meet­ing for then UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day to step down. Per­sad-Bisses­sar had won that elec­tion.

Nages­sar's Cou­va North unit was al­so to meet yes­ter­day on the elec­tion. His ap­peal for com­pro­mise comes af­ter sides be­gan shap­ing up in the Op­po­si­tion par­ty in prepa­ra­tion for the De­cem­ber 5 in­ter­nal poll where the lead­er­ship is up for con­test.Per­sad-Bisses­sar launched her bid to re­tain lead­er­ship of the par­ty last week­end. Mooni­lal is re­ceiv­ing sup­port from some for­mer MPs, sev­er­al in­cum­bents and past and present mem­bers.

UNC Sen­a­tor Vas­ant Bharath has said he would say by this week­end if he would al­so con­test the lead­er­ship.Yes­ter­day, Yet­ming said he had no prob­lem sup­port­ing Mooni­lal. "I think he has the abil­i­ty to breathe new life in­to the par­ty as a par­ty first and as a gov­ern­ment in wait­ing which are two sep­a­rate is­sues," he added.

On Mooni­lal's abil­i­ty to at­tract na­tion­al sup­port, Yet­ming said: "He's high­ly in­tel­li­gent and suf­fi­cient­ly ex­pe­ri­enced in the pol­i­tics to do what's re­quired to make him­self ap­peal­ing to the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty (so) he can have cross-bor­der ap­peal."There are draw­backs re­gard­ing the in­cum­bent and while she is a for­mer col­league, we need a strong Op­po­si­tion."

Nages­sar, who said Cou­va North would watch to see what arose from last night's meet­ing and UNC ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings, said his unit was di­vid­ed on the lead­er­ship is­sue. He said he was al­so not­ing rank-and-file mem­bers' views.

He said he was sure the lead­er­ship is­sue would have arisen at last night's par­lia­men­tary arm meet­ing and as an at­tendee, he was pre­pared to call for com­pro­mise be­cause any bat­tle on this will sure­ly frac­ture the par­ty and re­tard any move for us to go for­ward as a healthy Op­po­si­tion. It cer­tain­ly won't be good for T&T to have a di­vid­ed, in­ef­fec­tive Op­po­si­tion.

"We have seen how in-fight­ing dam­aged UNC in pre­vi­ous in­ter­nal elec­tions. While democ­ra­cy ex­ists, I feel peo­ple must un­der­stand the mag­ni­tude of the sit­u­a­tion, pos­si­ble ill ef­fects and deal ap­pro­pri­ate­ly with it. I am pre­pared to make a call for com­pro­mise on that ba­sis."

Chair­man of UNC Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy, Ham­lyn Jailal, said his ex­ec­u­tive would meet next week on the is­sue, but he felt "Dr Mooni­lal is an ex­cel­lent choice... even the leader al­lud­ed to that four years ago when she spoke about him be­ing her 'heir ap­par­ent.'"So he will be a for­mi­da­ble op­po­nent. He has a sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al pro­file and can com­mand na­tion­al ap­peal and T&T's north­west if his slate re­flects a prop­er eth­nic mix.

"Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar head­ed a Gov­ern­ment that de­liv­ered but she faced five de­feats so mem­bers would give her a hard look. Al­so, the UNC has to re­struc­ture and mount a chal­lenge to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment."For­mer To­co/San­gre Grande can­di­date Brent San­cho said he was still weigh­ing whether he would re­main in pol­i­tics and was look­ing at the lead­er­ship op­tions re­port­ed.

"I'll be ex­am­in­ing their plans for the par­ty and de­cid­ing based on that. One thing for sure, we need to dust our­selves off and start plan­ning for the fu­ture."

Roop­nar­ine un­de­cid­ed

For­mer Oropouche West MP Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, who heads UNC's Women's Arm, said she had not de­cid­ed if she would con­test an ex­ec­u­tive post "or de­cid­ed what I would do po­lit­i­cal­ly."On whether she sup­ports Per­sad-Bisses­sar or Mooni­lal, she said: "I haven't yet de­cid­ed any­thing."

On if UNC was per­form­ing ef­fec­tive­ly as an Op­po­si­tion, Roop­nar­ine said: "There's al­ways room for im­prove­ment. The par­ty has work to be done fol­low­ing loss of elec­tions. We're will­ing to do the work to con­tin­ue build­ing and I am pre­pared to do my part in that."

Ch­agua­nas West MP Gan­ga Singh said con­stituents were still con­sid­er­ing the lead­er­ship mat­ter. Some mem­bers told T&T Guardian they won­dered why the elec­tions were be­ing held at this time.

For­mer To­co MP Ru­pert Grif­fith said he had not giv­en it se­ri­ous thought but need­ed to talk to var­i­ous peo­ple be­fore de­cid­ing who to sup­port. He said MP Fuad Khan was en­ti­tled to his view that Per­sad-Bisses­sar should step down.UNC's Garvin Nicholas said he want­ed to see the par­ty de­vel­op as a strong one, not on­ly in T&T "but as a re­gion­al leader, one that could sus­tain much longer than its orig­i­nal in­cep­tion since it's im­por­tant to democ­ra­cy for such an al­ter­na­tive to ex­ist.

"I will con­sid­er what slates are pre­sent­ed and if they have the po­ten­tial to ap­peal across all T&T and cre­ate a sus­tain­able par­ty,not one that's per­ceived to be dom­i­nat­ed by one eth­nic­i­ty or re­li­gion," he added.