Gail Alexan­der

?UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal will sup­port new UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader and UNC MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce his de­ci­sion on this be­tween to­day and to­mor­row. And pres­sure is mount­ing from UNC mem­bers in Tabaquite who are call­ing for UNC MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the is­sue al­so. The sit­u­a­tion may there­fore like­ly lend Per­sad-Bisses­sar the req­ui­site votes she needs to be­come Op­po­si­tion leader by ear­ly next week. Mooni­lal con­firmed his sup­port in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter at­tend­ing a meet­ing of his Oropouche East con­stituen­cy which man­dat­ed him to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He was ex­pect­ed to sign a doc­u­ment re­gard­ing his sup­port yes­ter­day. In Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal was hearti­ly con­grat­u­lat­ed on ar­rival by UNC chief whip Jack Warn­er and oth­er UNC back­benchers. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was al­so a-glow with smiles and an­i­mat­ed con­ver­sa­tion for Mooni­lal with whom she be­gan speak­ing im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter she ar­rived.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar took over from Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day as UNC leader in re­cent in­ter­nal elec­tions. She al­ready has the sup­port for the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader of MPs Jack Warn­er, Har­ry Par­tap, Win­ston Pe­ters and Nizam Baksh. Last week, Fyz­abad MP Shar­ma's con­stituen­cy chair­man Ra­jwan­tee Bul­lock said the unit was sup­port­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's new ex­ec­u­tive in all mat­ters in­clud­ing the Op­po­si­tion leader is­sue. Shar­ma's sup­port is there­fore ex­pect­ed, UNC ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers con­firmed yes­ter­day. Oropouche East chair­man Al­fred Subi­ah al­so said then that the unit sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the post and would fi­nalise a po­si­tion by yes­ter­day. Fol­low­ing the Oropouche meet­ing yes­ter­day, Subi­ah told TG the ex­ec­u­tive con­grat­u­lat­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar on her re­cent UNC elec­tion vic­to­ry and of­fi­cial­ly pledged to work "hand in hand" with her to build the UNC and form the next Gov­ern­ment in 2010 "or be­fore."

Subi­ah added, "The ex­ec­u­tive not­ed the over­whelm­ing sup­port for the new leader in Oropouche East and the views of the wider mem­ber­ship of the par­ty and com­mu­ni­ties in this area and we ad­vised our MP Roodal Mooni­lal to sup­port Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar so she can as­sume the man­tle of Op­po­si­tion leader in the very near fu­ture." Subi­ah said the con­stituen­cy al­so ex­pressed deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion and grat­i­tude to Pan­day "on his great con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of the UNC and its suc­cess­es from 1988 to 2010." Subi­ah con­tact­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the meet­ing. Speak­ing af­ter his ex­ec­u­tive's meet­ing, Mooni­lal said: "The ex­ec­u­tive has ten­dered its ad­vice to me as MP and I will con­sid­er it and act ac­cord­ing­ly–I have to go on their ad­vice since they speak on be­half of the con­stituen­cy and its mem­bers." "So there's lit­tle else I can do in the sit­u­a­tion save fol­low their man­date–the con­stituen­cy has spo­ken and I act to suit," Mooni­lal added.

Gopeesingh, who said last week that he had to think long and hard about the sit­u­a­tion, its reper­cus­sions and con­se­quences ahead, is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce his de­ci­sion this week­end–pos­si­bly to­mor­row, it was con­firmed on Wednes­day. UNC Ca­roni East chair­man Anil Ram­nanan, whose ex­ec­u­tive met on Wednes­day night– and which con­sis­tent­ly called for Gopeesingh to lend sup­port in the is­sue–said: "We've de­cid­ed to give our MP time to con­sid­er the is­sue. He's elect­ed for five years with a man­date to serve so we ex­pect he'll do the right thing. We don't in­tend to pres­sure him." With the sup­port of Mooni­lal–now in the bag – Shar­ma's ex­pect­ed and hints that Gopeesingh may al­so agree, Per­sad-Bisses­sar could be en route to be­com­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader by next week. A lob­by has been mount­ed for the sup­port of MP Vas­ant Bharath who has sup­port­ed Pan­day. How­ev­er, UNC's Tabaquite con­stituen­cy is plac­ing some pres­sure on MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj–who has not sup­port­ed Per­sad-BIsses­sar–to do so.

Tabaquite par­ty or­gan­is­er Ravi Rati­ram said yes­ter­day that the unit met on Thurs­day un­der chair­man Hen­ry Awong and agreed to call on Ma­haraj to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar for Op­po­si­tion Leader. But MP Ma­haraj said in an in­ter­view pri­or to yes­ter­day's Par­lia­ment that he was not heed­ing the call: Ma­haraj added, "The area's ex­ec­u­tive has not been func­tion­ing and do not have meet­ings. On­ly re­cent­ly did they start func­tion­ing when some mem­bers were in­volved in elec­tions. There­fore I've placed a con­stituen­cy coun­cil to ad­min­is­ter to the area." "So the state­ment from that (oth­er) group has no force as it does not rep­re­sent the con­stituen­cy's views. I would there­fore to­tal­ly ig­nore it." Ma­haraj added, "I in­tend to con­sult with dif­fer­ent ar­eas and vil­lages in my con­stituen­cy to dis­cuss Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment can­di­dates and whether peo­ple will sup­port some in­cum­bents in­clud­ing can­di­dates who have not func­tioned."

?Pan­day re­sponds:

?Bas: "I don't know if I'll be Op­po­si­tion leader next week." Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day was non-com­mit­tal on the de­ci­sion by his for­mer elec­tion cam­paign man­ag­er Roodal Mooni­lal to sup­port Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the post of Op­po­si­tion leader. "Peo­ple are en­ti­tled to try, for­tu­nate­ly or un­for­tu­nate­ly peo­ple are free to make choic­es in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try," Pan­day said in re­sponse to the de­vel­op­ment con­cern­ing Mooni­lal. Asked if he thought he would be Op­po­si­tion Leader next week, Pan­day said, "I don't know." Pan­day said he was not tak­ing the sit­u­a­tion per­son­al­ly, "Not at all ," he added. (GA)