Gail Alexan­der

For­mer UNC MP Dr Fuad Khan con­tin­ues of­fer­ing me­di­a­tion ser­vices to the UNC, COP and es­tranged UNC MPs to heal cur­rent wounds and move the uni­ty process for­ward. "I've learned from my own be­hav­iour in the past, and I've re­alised that I should have han­dled my sit­u­a­tion dif­fer­ent­ly. I don't want my col­leagues to make the same mis­take I did, Khan said in an in­ter­view. "I'll be will­ing to sit with all of the (UNC, COP, Ram­jack) lead­ers, and I have ob­tained the ser­vices of the head of the Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion Cen­tre in T&T to as­sist."

Khan said he had in­tend­ed to ap­proach the var­i­ous lead­ers on his idea, in or­der to get it go­ing be­fore Par­lia­ment re­sumes next month. Khan, who was re­cent­ly ap­point­ed by UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day as a tem­po­rary UNC Sen­a­tor, said he felt me­di­a­tion was nec­es­sary con­sid­er­ing the height­ened ten­sions among the var­i­ous par­ties. "Why must this be? You have on­ly to look at the PNM's dis­ci­pline, be­cause no mat­ter what in­ter­nal is­sues they have, it is not brought out in pub­lic, and their es­tranged MPs nev­er vote against their par­ty in Par­lia­ment. Lar­ry Achong didn't, nor did Kei­th Row­ley.

"Mem­bers of all par­ties al­so have the right to elect a leader of their choice, and all lead­ers should be el­i­gi­ble for nom­i­na­tion. You can't tell vot­ers that X or Y can­not, or should not, go up again, or is out­dat­ed.

"That is tak­ing away peo­ple's right to choose their lead­ers." Khan added:

"When you saw how the PNM leader dealt with some per­sons op­posed to him dur­ing his term in Op­po­si­tion, it is not sur­pris­ing what oc­curred in the pre-elec­tion pe­ri­od in 2007. "If peo­ple re­al­ly want to move the uni­ty process for­ward, they have to give up the old mind­set that (UNC leader Bas­deo) 'Pan­day has to go.' You can't talk uni­ty and say, leave out some­one. Every­one's in­put is nec­es­sary" Khan said Pan­day was en­ti­tled to con­test the lead­er­ship post as much as any­one else.

"If some­one tells him get out and leave the par­ty to oth­er peo­ple, that is to­tal­ly un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, au­thor­i­tar­i­an rule, and when those per­sons get in­to pow­er, we can ex­pect noth­ing but un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prac­tices from them. "If they don't like some mem­bers of the pub­lic when they get in­to of­fice, they will do the same thing to them. So if peo­ple re­al­ly have de­mo­c­ra­t­ic pub­lic in­ter­ests at heart, they will sup­port hav­ing every­one con­test­ing lead­er­ship and seek­ing pub­lic opin­ion." Khan said the US al­lowed every­one to con­test for the lead­er­ship post. He said all par­ty lead­ers should de­bate is­sues on a pub­lic plat­form.