RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca­s­ookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the cam­paign ahead of the June 15 Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in­ter­nal elec­tions heats up, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray claims all arms of the UNC have col­lapsed.

Speak­ing at a cot­tage meet­ing at Pluck Road, San Fran­cique, host­ed by the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group (SORFAG), Paray said there was a dis­con­nect be­tween the par­ty’s hi­er­ar­chy and the mem­ber­ship.

He lament­ed the fact that peo­ple in Ma­yaro had to jour­ney to Cen­tral Trinidad to find out if their names were on the vot­ing list and said such in­con­ve­niences were un­ac­cept­able. 

Once he and his team won the elec­tions, Paray said, he in­tend­ed to make vast changes in the way the UNC han­dled ad­min­is­tra­tive busi­ness by digi­tis­ing all ad­min­is­tra­tive op­er­a­tions.

He al­so said it was a shame that the UNC did not have a head­quar­ters and that he planned to change this.

“The day af­ter we win the elec­tions, the first thing we will do is build a head­quar­ters that will con­vert the par­ty to a na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tion,” he shout­ed to loud ap­plause.

He said the ex­ec­u­tives al­so seemed clue­less about the state of the par­ty.

“I asked the trea­sur­er one day, how much mon­ey the par­ty has. He said ‘I don’t know.’ I asked him what it costs to rent a build­ing for the par­ty head­quar­ters and he said he didn’t know. I asked him, well what do you know and he said ‘I on­ly know what they tell me and they don’t tell me any­thing’,” Paray re­called.

Say­ing every arm of the par­ty had col­lapsed, Paray said if it did not make changes, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) would stay in gov­ern­ment.

Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles agreed that a change was need­ed in the par­ty. He said when the UNC lost the 2015 elec­tions it was be­cause sev­er­al for­eign con­sul­tants had been hired. He said he took the blame for a failed elec­tion cam­paign and no­body in the UNC de­fend­ed him.

“Our par­ty had all the time to in­ves­ti­gate why 70 per cent of vot­ers in the last LGE chose to stay home rather than sup­port us, but we did not.

Would such an in­ves­ti­ga­tion have re­vealed that we need­ed to make sig­nif­i­cant changes in our par­ty’s lead­er­ship and the par­ty’s or­gans?” he asked.

He al­so dis­missed ru­mours that he was an agent of the PNM.

“They could jump high or jump low, I will nev­er cross the floor and go PNM. I am UNC til I dead,” he said.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said UNC mem­bers had to stop chastis­ing each oth­er neg­a­tive­ly.

“When are we go­ing to stop this in­fight­ing and call each oth­er ne­makharam and ma­ha neemakharam, es­pe­cial­ly when we are try­ing to get the younger peo­ple in­volved in our com­mu­ni­ties,” Ram­bal­ly said. 

Paray said he would un­veil his slate af­ter Nom­i­na­tion Day on May 24. Sev­en­teen po­si­tions are be­ing con­test­ed but the post of po­lit­i­cal leader is not up for grabs un­til next year.