Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are of­fer­ing vary­ing views on the rift with­in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), with one rec­om­mend­ing that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ig­nore her crit­ics while an­oth­er says it is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for her to purge the par­ty of dis­si­dents be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tions.

Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad and Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath com­ment­ed on the sit­u­a­tion with­in the par­ty, fol­low­ing re­cent pub­lic crit­i­cisms of Per­sad-Bisses­sar by Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence on Fri­day, Ram­bal­ly said the UNC will lose the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship. A few weeks ago, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray al­so held a me­dia con­fer­ence call­ing for the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion to be held when con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due in June. Both MPs still re­cent­ly filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to con­test the gen­er­al elec­tions for their re­spec­tive seats.

Ram­per­sad said Ram­bal­ly’s com­ments wouldn’t neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the par­ty at next year’s elec­tions.

“I don’t think that is go­ing to play a fac­tor in any up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion be­cause dis­senters come, dis­senters go. That is the way of pol­i­tics,” she said.

Ram­per­sad added that while par­ty mem­bers have a right to ex­press their views, she did not agree with their ap­proach.

“I would just ig­nore them if I were the leader. I would just ig­nore them. If there are re­al con­cerns, I think they should have ap­proached the lead­er­ship. They should have writ­ten to them, gone through the in­ter­nal mech­a­nisms and asked for some re­dress; there is al­so the use of the courts if they are do­ing any­thing il­le­gal, rather than come to the me­dia, so clear­ly, this was a me­dia cam­paign against the leader,” she said.

She said Per­sad-Bisses­sar should fo­cus on the in­ter­nal and gen­er­al elec­tions and “let the chips fall where it may af­ter that”.

Ra­goonath mean­while said the UNC lead­er­ship could now purge the par­ty of dis­si­dent el­e­ments. He re­called that two years ago, Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley called a snap elec­tion, purged her gov­ern­ment of sev­er­al sit­ting MPs and won the elec­tion in a month. He be­lieves the UNC has enough time to em­bark on a sim­i­lar ac­tion.

“Be­cause we are about a year away from an elec­tion, what I ex­pect to hap­pen is that the par­ty would purge it­self of the so-called dis­si­dent el­e­ments and have enough time ... to con­sol­i­date it­self and to ap­proach the elec­tion when­ev­er it is called in a uni­fied form.

“They would have al­ready ex­pelled or elim­i­nat­ed or mar­gin­alised the dis­si­dent fac­tion. If my analy­sis is cor­rect, the im­pact would be min­imised once the par­ty treats with the dis­si­dent el­e­ment ear­ly,” he said.

Ra­goonath added, “A re­al po­lit­i­cal par­ty would take crit­i­cal ac­tion based on what we have seen and some of the voic­es that we have heard, some of the com­plaints we have heard and, more im­por­tant­ly, if the par­ty de­cides to call the bluff of these peo­ple, I am al­most cer­tain that they will be con­fined to what we call the po­lit­i­cal ceme­tery.”

Al­so weigh­ing in was po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Prof Hamid Ghany, who said, com­par­a­tive­ly speak­ing, Ram­bal­ly’s fil­ing of nom­i­na­tion pa­pers to be a can­di­date for a par­ty whose leader he does not sup­port re­sem­bles the de­ci­sion of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley in 2010 to file nom­i­na­tion pa­pers for the PNM, at a time when he was at log­ger­heads with Patrick Man­ning.

Ch­agua­nas West

ex­ec­u­tive de­fends Kam­la

The Ch­agua­nas West Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive says Ram­bal­ly does not have its sup­port.

Chair­man Faaiq Mo­hammed de­scribed the MP’s com­ments as a “mad­man’s rant” and ac­cused him of at­tack­ing the Op­po­si­tion Leader us­ing PNM lies and al­le­ga­tions.

“For a minute, I thought he was go­ing to an­nounce his sub­mis­sion of a nom­i­na­tion for the PNM,” Mo­hammed said in a state­ment over the week­end.

He said there seems to be some­thing more sin­is­ter at play.

“In con­clu­sion, I can agree change is need­ed. It’s need­ed in Ch­agua­nas West,” he added.

UNC chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip David Lee al­so de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the par­ty against Ram­bal­ly’s al­le­ga­tions.

“One can­not pur­port to be fight­ing for democ­ra­cy by at­tack­ing the demon­strat­ed de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights of mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress,” Tan­coo said in a state­ment.

“The UNC po­lit­i­cal leader and the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive have been elect­ed by the ma­jor­i­ty in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion to serve for a par­tic­u­lar time frame, and in full com­pli­ance with the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion.”

He said par­ty of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, have re­peat­ed­ly said the par­ty will con­tin­ue to abide by the con­sti­tu­tion.

“To de­mand that the par­ty stop its prepa­ra­tions for the im­pend­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, while at the same time state that the par­ty is un­pre­pared is again, il­log­i­cal and works to the ben­e­fit of the PNM,” Tan­coo added, not­ing that un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar, UNC had made mas­sive strides for na­tion­al growth and de­vel­op­ment.

“The UNC mem­ber­ship and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty are cry­ing out for a unit­ed and a com­mon plat­form against the Gov­ern­ment’s op­pres­sion,” he said.

Lee said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­de­fined lead­er­ship by be­ing a leader who leads from the ground.

“As Chief Whip, I can con­firm that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has led the Op­po­si­tion bench by al­ways en­sur­ing con­sen­sus, by al­ways be­ing in­clu­sive and more so, al­ways en­sur­ing that our Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are ful­ly pre­pared to fight the PNM’s at­tack on our cit­i­zens,” he said.

“Democ­ra­cy al­lows all a voice. If some opt to use theirs to weak­en the UNC’s fight against the PNM, we will not be de­terred as the UNC and par­lia­men­tary bench are be­hind an in­clu­sive strong leader with a po­tent vi­sion to save T&T.”