Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Ch­agua­nas West MP Jack Warn­er says he has lost faith in the in­ter­nal elec­tions process of the UNC. He al­so claimed there was a plot by the Bas­deo Pan­day slate to steal the Jan­u­ary 24 elec­tions in eight con­stituen­cies. Warn­er made the al­le­ga­tions as he ad­dressed hun­dreds of peo­ple at Ko­rea Vil­lage, Cara­pichaima, on Tues­day night. He said Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Wade Mark, MP Vas­ant Bharath and Ram­lochan Pan­choo were all on the elec­tions com­mit­tee, so it was fla­grant abuse of the elec­tion process for them to file nom­i­na­tions. "I es­pe­cial­ly ask you not to vote for Wade Mark, Vas­ant Bharath and Ram­lochan Pan­choo, all of whom are on Bas' slate il­le­gal­ly," Warn­er said.

"Pan­day and his slate are try­ing to steal the elec­tions in eight con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Oropouche East, Oropouche West, Ca­roni East, Ca­roni Cen­tral, Cou­va North, Cou­va South and Na­pari­ma. "Wade (Mark) is on the mem­ber­ship com­mit­tee with Kelvin Ram­nath, and Bharath and Pan­choo are on the elec­tions com­mit­tee with Khem­chan Ram­dath; so how can they now file nom­i­na­tions. "These mem­bers of these two com­mit­tees are sup­posed to be neu­tral and in­de­pen­dent since these com­mit­tees have been ap­point­ed to man­age and con­duct the elec­tions. "How then can they sit on these com­mit­tees and then of­fer them­selves for of­fice in the par­ty?" Warn­er asked. Mean­while, for­mer jour­nal­ist Sunil Ramjits­ingh, who worked close­ly with the Op­po­si­tion Leader as a com­mu­ni­ca­tions spe­cial­ist, al­so com­plained of dis­crep­an­cies in the elec­tions process.

He said he "smug­gled out" a list and was shocked to see du­pli­ca­tion of names. Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, who al­so spoke on Warn­er's plat­form, said that weeks ago, he, Warn­er and Ma­haraj agreed that Pan­day was stran­gling the UNC. "But now, Ramesh, be­ing the flip-flop­per that he is, has now turned to Pan­day be­cause he be­lieves that the on­ly po­lit­i­cal ex­is­tence he can have, lies with Pan­day," he said. "If he wants to stay with Bas, we will leave him and Bas, and move for­ward." He al­so urged sup­port­ers to vote for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Warn­er. He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was the on­ly one who could bring all Op­po­si­tion forces to­geth­er. Con­tact­ed for com­ment yes­ter­day, Pan­day said he was in Par­lia­ment and could not an­swer any ques­tions.