Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) chair­man Dave Tan­coo says any­one can as­pire to be Prime Min­is­ter or UNC Leader, but mem­bers must nev­er al­low the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment to “dis­tract us and di­vide us”, es­pe­cial­ly now af­ter word of a gen­er­al elec­tion due some­time soon.

Tan­coo com­ment­ed yes­ter­day on re­cent is­sues where the UNC had been spot­light­ed, the lat­est in­clud­ing in­creased sig­nals by UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray of his in­ter­est in the par­ty’s lead­er­ship post and Paray’s view that mem­bers want an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­fresh their Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive.

Paray, who has been the Ma­yaro MP since 2015, aired those views in a Pow­er 102 FM in­ter­view.

The UNC lead­er­ship’s term is up in 2025. Tra­di­tion­al­ly, the par­ty re­tains the leader and ex­ec­u­tive it has when en­ter­ing an elec­tion year, in or­der to pre­vent the par­ty from be­ing di­vid­ed in fight­ing po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents. UNC’s Na­tex term is up to June, of­fi­cials said re­cent­ly.

Paray did not an­swer Guardian Me­dia’s calls or texted queries yes­ter­day. But in his ra­dio com­ments, Paray claimed UNC’s “mem­ber­ship re­al­ly want to have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­fresh or re­set in terms of UNC’s Na­tex”. He said that meant, “We need the best ver­sion of the UNC to take the PNM head-on in 2025 and there must be an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the par­ty to de­cide whether we’re at the best ver­sion of our­selves right now, or we need a new team to give us the best ver­sion.”

Paray said he was not sur­prised “peo­ple or con­stituents or the mem­ber­ship” felt he had some­thing of val­ue to of­fer in pro­vid­ing guid­ance and lead­er­ship at the end of the day, and the “mem­ber­ship will de­cide that when the time comes”.

On what he wants, Paray had said, “I don’t think there’s a po­lice con­sta­ble who joins the TTPS who doesn’t want to be Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.”

Paray’s com­ments were cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia and was pro­mot­ed by some mem­bers ask­ing if peo­ple would sup­port him for leader.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­spond to texted queries on Paray’s state­ments, nor did UNC deputy lead­ers Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee and Jear­lean John.

But chair­man Tan­coo said, “Some of us have worked 30-plus years to build a strong, re­silient par­ty that will al­low any cit­i­zen, who shares the same phi­los­o­phy of pa­tri­ot­ic uni­ty for na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, to join and as­pire.

“Ours is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. Any­one can as­pire to be Prime Min­is­ter or UNC Leader. In fact, many have and many will con­tin­ue to so do. That’s the essence of democ­ra­cy.

“How­ev­er, we must nev­er al­low the PNM to dis­tract us and di­vide us, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter word of an elec­tion due some­time ‘soon’.

“The work of thou­sands over the decades to build a unit­ed par­ty makes it at­trac­tive now to many. We didn’t get here with­out strong lead­er­ship and ded­i­cat­ed pa­tri­ots, many of whom sim­ply want a bet­ter T&T. The mere fact so many are in­ter­est­ed in the UNC as a ve­hi­cle for change, tells me our decades-long hard work is pay­ing off.

“Our coun­try is in the worst state it’s ever been in, with the av­er­age cit­i­zen trau­ma­tised by fear of crim­i­nals. It’s clear the peo­ple re­alise that on­ly a unit­ed coun­try will res­cue cit­i­zens from this vin­dic­tive Gov­ern­ment.”

Na­tex mem­ber

says stop the at­tacks

A long­stand­ing UNC Na­tex mem­ber, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, yes­ter­day added, “My ques­tion to Mr Rush­ton Paray is: what’s more im­por­tant—re­moval of PNM which sent up food and fu­el prices and crime? Or UNC’s Na­tex? In re­cent months, we’ve seen at­tacks by some with things that can go against the UNC and weak­en it. When we vot­ed on a Pres­i­dent, three votes were spoilt—was it these per­sons?”

Paray’s re­cent state­ments were his lat­est on the UNC lead­er­ship.

Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent state­ments about mem­bers be­ing treat­ed like “sheep” in the Bas­deo Pan­day pe­ri­od, Paray called for peo­ple to stand up to those who “mocked” Pan­day. Per­sad-Biss­esar sub­se­quent­ly said she nev­er mocked Pan­day and loved him as her gu­ru. She’d said gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­na­tions are clos­ing in a while and ”as ex­pect­ed,” some who did no work were look­ing for triv­ial non-is­sues to im­prove their prospects.

Paray’s pro­file has in­creased in the last year, with en­gage­ments with lo­cal and for­eign per­son­al­i­ties on his con­stituen­cy’s be­half. Last year, af­ter Paray spoke on a tele­vi­sion show about Venezuela, ver­bal stones about “Mick­ey Mouse busi­ness” were pelt­ed at him and oth­er MPs by UNC’s Mooni­lal and Bar­ry Padarath.

Mooni­lal said there was one par­ty, one leader and one vi­sion and if there was no lead­er­ship elec­tion and peo­ple were cam­paign­ing, “they had to be delu­sion­al”.