KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly be­lieves pres­sure forced the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) hi­er­ar­chy to an­nounce the date for its Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex) elec­tions, par­ty chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Shane Mo­hammed say the par­ty was sim­ply fol­low­ing its con­sti­tu­tion.

“It has to be be­cause the rate at which the po­lit­i­cal leader and the present Na­tex were op­er­at­ing was as though we would call that when we are ready,” Ram­bal­ly said.

The UNC an­nounced that Na­tex elec­tions will oc­cur on June 15 and will be­gin ac­cept­ing nom­i­na­tions to­mor­row. It fol­lowed weeks of clam­our­ing from UNC mem­bers, in­clud­ing Ram­bal­ly, Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly said the Na­tex was yet to show it was gear­ing up for in­ter­nal elec­tions. There­fore, he be­lieves the date fol­lowed pres­sure from mem­bers, re­call­ing that Na­tex mem­bers were say­ing the UNC was in gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign mode and in­ter­nal elec­tions were not best for the par­ty.

Ram­bal­ly said Na­tex moved full speed ahead in invit­ing nom­i­na­tions for gen­er­al elec­tion, which was meant to stymie MPs and oth­ers con­sid­er­ing Na­tex po­si­tions. He said this was an at­tempt by UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to evade call­ing the elec­tions.

“She has had a tra­di­tion of call­ing both her po­si­tion as the po­lit­i­cal leader, as well as the Na­tex to­geth­er, but on this oc­ca­sion, I see it is be­ing called sep­a­rate­ly.”

While Ram­bal­ly was sat­is­fied that the elec­tion would take place, he said the an­nounce­ment was as­tound­ing, giv­en that Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia on Fri­day that the par­ty had not an­nounced a date yet.

He said that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the cur­rent Na­tex op­er­ate as though elec­tions are on­ly about an­nounc­ing a date, cam­paign­ing, and polling day. He said the par­ty’s arms do not func­tion ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Ram­bal­ly is hope­ful a new Na­tex will change how the par­ty op­er­ates.

“It is clear that the par­ty chair­man did not know that a date was be­ing set and to be an­nounced by the gen­er­al sec­re­tary. If, in fact, the par­ty chair­man knew that a date was be­ing set, why did he not say, ‘Look, an an­nounce­ment will be made soon,’ as op­posed to the usu­al rhetoric that we have been hear­ing for the past few months that elec­tions would be called when con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.”

Ram­bal­ly pre­ferred not to re­veal whether he would con­test a po­si­tion but to en­cour­age in­ter­est­ed mem­bers to par­tic­i­pate. 

With the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounc­ing Fri­day that the In­di­an Walk/Lengua and Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo lo­cal gov­ern­ment by-elec­tions will take place on June 17, Ram­bal­ly is con­cerned about the prox­im­i­ty of those dates. He said the par­ty should have con­sid­ered these mat­ters be­fore an­nounc­ing the elec­tion date.

Tan­coo: Noth­ing odd about the de­ci­sion

Re­spond­ing to Ram­bal­ly’s state­ments, Tan­coo said the par­ty sim­ply took a de­ci­sion fol­low­ing his in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia and an­nounced it. He said there was noth­ing ne­far­i­ous or odd about it. On the as­ser­tion that the par­ty bowed to pres­sure, Tan­coo said it was un­for­tu­nate as the par­ty al­ways main­tained it would hold elec­tions per the con­sti­tu­tion.

“They would love to take cred­it for all kinds of po­si­tions of the par­ty, but the par­ty does not take de­ci­sions on the ba­sis of whims and fan­cy. We act with­in the con­sti­tu­tion, which was clear and stat­ed from the very first day. It is sad that these gen­tle peo­ple are so des­per­ate to take cred­it for things that have noth­ing to do with their ac­tions. Maybe they should do some­thing and then take cred­it for it,” Tan­coo said.

Tan­coo is in­ter­est­ed in con­tin­u­ing as a Na­tex mem­ber and ex­pects to con­test a po­si­tion. How­ev­er, he will de­cide af­ter con­sult­ing with oth­ers.

Mo­hammed: UNC fol­low­ing its con­sti­tu­tion

Po­lit­i­cal Sci­en­tist Shane Mo­hammed said those call­ing for the elec­tion date months in ad­vance pre-empt­ed the par­ty and seemed to want to be­come he­roes and thump their chest, be­liev­ing they trig­gered an elec­tion. How­ev­er, Mo­hammed could not re­call the UNC lead­er­ship in­di­cat­ing there would not be Na­tex elec­tions.

He said there was mount­ing pres­sure on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down as po­lit­i­cal leader, as some doubt her ca­pac­i­ty to lead the par­ty to a gen­er­al elec­tion vic­to­ry.

He ques­tioned the mo­tive of the protest­ing MPs, say­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s term in of­fice was not up for grabs as her three-year term ex­pires in June 2025.

“Did they want in­ter­nal elec­tions that in­clud­ed the po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, open­ing up the po­si­tion for elec­tions? If that is the case, that is square­ly the pre­rog­a­tive of the po­lit­i­cal leader and no­body else. The con­sti­tu­tion al­lows for the po­lit­i­cal leader to de­cide whether he or she would be putting them­selves up for re-elec­tion pri­or to their term in of­fice com­ing to an end,” Mo­hammed said.

Haynes and Paray re­spond

In a state­ment, Haynes-Al­leyne wel­comed news of the elec­tions, say­ing the par­ty will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate the strength of its in­ter­nal process­es and com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy to all mem­bers and the wider pub­lic over the next few weeks.

“I look for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in this process of strength­en­ing our par­ty and en­gag­ing our mem­ber­ship. Tru­ly, the suc­cess­ful ex­e­cu­tion of this elec­tion will in­vig­o­rate our par­ty and put us on a stronger foot­ing to con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, I am ex­cit­ed for the cam­paign ahead and the pol­i­cy-based plat­forms that will emerge as we high­light our plans to fur­ther strength­en and build our na­tion,” Haynes-Al­leyne said.

She said T&T is well poised to lev­el up the ma­tu­ri­ty of its pol­i­tics. 

Mean­while, Paray called on all UNC mem­bers in­ter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing in good gov­er­nance to send him a let­ter to­day. He said T&T needs the UNC in Gov­ern­ment more than ever, as the par­ty can­not al­low the PNM to con­tin­ue to de­stroy the na­tion for an­oth­er five years. There­fore, build­ing a stronger UNC means build­ing a stronger T&T.

“I look for­ward to par­tic­i­pat­ing in these elec­tions, and I will dis­cuss the ex­tent of my par­tic­i­pa­tion soon. I call on all UNC mem­bers to take part in these elec­tions and let their voic­es be heard. The UNC be­longs to all its mem­bers, and they have an es­sen­tial role to play in restor­ing the vi­tal­i­ty and elec­tabil­i­ty of our par­ty,” Paray said.

He is pleased with the an­nounce­ment of the elec­tion date. He said if the UNC is to break the cy­cle of re­peat­ed gen­er­al elec­tion fail­ures, which have kept it in op­po­si­tion for the past nine years, the par­ty must re­form how it op­er­ates and man­ages its af­fairs.