Con­tin­ued di­vi­sion and bad­ger­ing may have con­tributed to the res­ig­na­tion of Op­po­si­tion MP Prakash Ra­mad­har from the post of Con­gress of the Peo­ple po­lit­i­cal leader a year be­fore his term of of­fice end­ed, sources hint­ed yes­ter­day.

Elec­tions for the post of COP leader are due next year but Ra­mad­har re­signed Wednes­day night. The par­ty, how­ev­er, con­firmed he re­mained a COP mem­ber and MP for St Au­gus­tine.

Par­ty gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Clyde Weath­er­head, yes­ter­day said Ra­mad­har had ten­dered his res­ig­na­tion to the par­ty's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive on Wednes­day night.

"In his let­ter, Mr Ra­mad­har has in­di­cat­ed an ef­fec­tive date for his de­ci­sion, which he sug­gests will al­low the par­ty suf­fi­cient time to or­gan­ise an elec­tion to de­cide on a suc­ces­sor and fa­cil­i­tate im­me­di­ate tran­si­tion which will en­sure the con­tin­ued work of the COP in chart­ing its fu­ture, which we start­ed at the re­treat last year," Weath­er­head added.

Ra­mad­har didn't an­swer calls yes­ter­day.

But COP sources claimed yes­ter­day that Ra­mad­har had be­come dis­en­chant­ed with con­tin­u­ing crit­i­cism and "bad­ger­ing" that dogged his tenure with the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment and af­ter.

Ra­mad­har had been the COP's sec­ond leader since suc­ceed­ing for­mer COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an in 2011 and gained a sec­ond term in 2014 in a bat­tle with his for­mer chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who had been sup­port­ed by Dook­er­an.

Asked what rea­sons Ra­mad­har gave for his res­ig­na­tion, Weath­er­head said he didn't de­tail his po­si­tion but said he (Ra­mad­har) would say more at Sun­day's COP Na­tion­al Coun­cil meet­ing.

Asked if di­vi­sion in the par­ty might have con­tributed to the res­ig­na­tion, Weath­er­head said he could not speak for any­one.

He said the COP ex­ec­u­tive would rec­om­mend how the par­ty would pro­ceed and that deputy leader Dr Anirudh Ma­habir had been act­ing in re­cent weeks since Ra­mad­har was over­seas.

On the per­cep­tion the COP is a "spent force", Weath­er­head said sim­ply: "That's not our per­cep­tion."

COP sources said with Ra­mad­har's res­ig­na­tion elec­tions for the lead­er­ship may have to be held by April.

Com­ment­ing on Ra­mad­har's res­ig­na­tion last night, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was sur­prised by the move but did not know if he had suc­cumbed to pres­sure with­in the par­ty.

She added it was now for the par­ty mem­ber­ship to de­cide on a way ahead.

MP Dr Bhoe Tewarie, who had been with the COP and joined the UNC last year, added: "COP mem­bers need to come to­geth­er to de­ter­mine if they have the will to sup­port the COP as a po­lit­i­cal par­ty, or whether it needs to evolve in­to some­thing else."

Asked the rul­ing PNM's thoughts on Ra­mad­har's res­ig­na­tion, PNM gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford said: "Prakash who...?" GA