Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has con­fessed that she has a weak­ness–blind­ly sup­port­ing Bas­deo Pan­day for too long. She has al­so re­vealed sus­pi­cions about re­cent meet­ings in­cum­bent UNC leader Pan­day held with Ramesh Ma­haraj, and an­oth­er one with Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning. She said it ap­peared that some­one was at­tempt­ing to stay out of jail. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is one of two can­di­dates chal­leng­ing Pan­day for the post of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader in to­mor­row's UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions. Al­so fight­ing for the po­si­tion of UNC po­lit­i­cal leader is Ma­haraj. "With due re­spect to Mr Pan­day, he says I have a weak­ness. Let me ad­mit, I re­al­ly do have a weak­ness. I do have a weak­ness," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "My weak­ness has been that I have sup­port­ed Mr Pan­day blind­ly for too long."

"I have to choose my coun­try and my peo­ple and my chil­dren and my na­tion be­fore I can choose my friend­ship to Mr Pan­day be­cause that friend­ship will nev­er take us in­to gov­ern­ment. "Mr Pan­day, I have a weak­ness, sir. I care about you. You helped me. You taught me. I was a stu­dent and (I) learned at your feet. I learned from you as my gu­ru and I learned well, but the time has come now–I am a stu­dent, yes–and I am ready to grad­u­ate now." Per­sad-Bisses­sar was speak­ing on Thurs­day night at the Kam­la for Leader pub­lic meet­ing at Tu­na­puna Hin­du School. She was re­spond­ing to re­peat­ed pub­lic ref­er­ences from Pan­day about her al­leged weak­ness. She al­so re­spond­ed to con­fir­ma­tions from Pan­day that he "bounced up" Ma­haraj on Jan­u­ary 19 at the of­fice of UNC MP Kelvin Ram­nath, who is the UNC mem­ber­ship com­mit­tee chair­man.

She cau­tioned that "an­oth­er deal is in the mak­ing, an­oth­er deal is be­ing bro­kered" and "the on­ly ones who can stop this from hap­pen­ing" were el­i­gi­ble vot­ers in the UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions. "When you see the his­to­ry of Mr File-man, the done-deal man, he has be­come and has been an agent of the PNM. He is now meet­ing Mr Pan­day in se­cret," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "And Mr Pan­day has met with the PNM as well. We do not know what hap­pened in those meet­ings but what was that meet­ing about too? So se­cret meet­ing with Ramesh and se­cret meet­ing with the PNM," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "When you see that hap­pen­ing, some­body (is) black­mail­ing some­body be­cause that some­body want(s) to stay out of jail. Some­body want(s) to stay out of jail. But if they want to stay out of jail, you go to court and prove your in­no­cence. "But, do not keep our peo­ple in op­po­si­tion be­cause of your own self­ish rea­sons. Do not do it... Mon­day morn­ing is court case again, you know... go and prove your in­no­cence."

She re­mind­ed sup­port­ers that Ma­haraj mashed up the UNC in 2001 and formed his own po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion–Team Uni­ty af­ter he "could not get his way." She said Man­ning cred­it­ed Ma­haraj for pro­vid­ing pho­tographs of Pan­day's con­tro­ver­sial Kens­ing­ton apart­ment in Lon­don, which was one of a se­ries of events that re­sult­ed in the UNC be­ing re­moved from gov­ern­ment. She quot­ed from news­pa­pers ar­ti­cles– Oc­to­ber 4, 2001–about Ma­haraj meet­ing Man­ning in a "mid­night deal." She said: "If there was any sin­gle rea­son to put these two gen­tle­men out of the lead­er­ship, this is it...The last time two of them fight, we went out of gov­ern­ment. And so when you see them join­ing up again, you know it is noth­ing good com­ing out of this. "Every time these two men have come to­geth­er, what (has) hap­pened? The UNC mash up."