Ke­jan Haynes

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has seem­ing­ly put aside his dif­fer­ences with the UNC and its po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and is once again try­ing to take an ac­tive role in the par­ty.

Bharath fell out of favour with the par­ty af­ter he chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the po­lit­i­cal leader po­si­tion in 2020 in a bit­ter, and bru­tal cam­paign. He re­peat­ed­ly called the in­ter­nal elec­tion process a “sham” and de­clined to con­test any oth­er elec­tion since, in­clud­ing last month’s in­ter­nal poll.

How­ev­er, on Fri­day night he post­ed a state­ment to his Face­book page say­ing he was ready to work with the par­ty again.

“My past dif­fer­ences with the UNC lead­er­ship pale in com­par­i­son to the per­va­sive is­sues that plague the coun­try un­der the in­com­pe­tent and cor­rupt hands of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment,” he said, adding that Per­sad-Bisses­sar demon­strat­ed “ul­ti­mate lead­er­ship” by set­ting aside per­son­al dif­fer­ences.

He said she asked him to “join hands to re­build” the na­tion to­geth­er.

Bharath praised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, say­ing her ap­proach was al­ways to place peo­ple at the heart of her poli­cies.

“Un­der the UNC we made sig­nif­i­cant strides in en­hanc­ing health­care, dri­ving eco­nom­ic growth and adopt­ing a more in­clu­sive ap­proach to gov­er­nance that tru­ly pri­ori­tised the needs of our cit­i­zens,” he said.

“This is not just about pol­i­tics, it is about build­ing a fu­ture that we can all be proud of,” Bharath said to close his an­nounce­ment. “To­geth­er we can make a dif­fer­ence and cre­ate a brighter fu­ture for Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Bharath what po­si­tion he would like to hold in the par­ty, es­pe­cial­ly giv­en the up­com­ing elec­tion.

He said: “No of­fi­cial ca­pac­i­ty. Just lend­ing my sup­port to en­sure a UNC vic­to­ry when­ev­er elec­tions are called.”

It’s un­clear just how mu­tu­al the feel­ing is though. De­spite Bharath’s an­nounce­ment on­line, there has been (up to press time) no rec­i­p­ro­ca­tion on the UNC’s so­cial me­dia chan­nels, wel­com­ing him back. Sources with­in the par­ty said Bharath’s an­nounce­ment was shared on the UNC’s Face­book page but lat­er re­moved.

Bharath may have made up with Per­sad-Bisses­sar but there may be some ten­sion with mem­bers of the par­ty.

In March 2023, Bharath claimed he was propo­si­tioned by women work­ing for a par­ty col­league while he was in the par­ty.

At the time, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher had just an­nounced that a spe­cial team had been set up to probe al­le­ga­tions that a UNC mem­ber was ac­cused of in­volve­ment in hu­man traf­fick­ing in 2012.

“I was sub­ject to and propo­si­tioned by girls who were ap­par­ent­ly work­ing on be­half of some­body who is a cur­rent sit­ting Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, and I know for a fact that oth­er Cab­i­net mem­bers had al­so been propo­si­tioned. I was told at the time the Prime Min­is­ter was aware of these ac­tiv­i­ties,” Bharath had said at the time.

The per­son is still a sit­ting mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and was a mem­ber of the Star Team slate in the in­ter­nal elec­tion held on June 15.

Bharath’s move to re­join the par­ty was strong­ly con­demned by his once al­ly in try­ing to un­seat Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for­mer UNC min­is­ter Dr De­vant Ma­haraj.

In a state­ment, Ma­haraj said: “How iron­ic it is that Bharath, who has spent years ve­he­ment­ly de­cry­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship as the very rea­son for the UNC’s pro­longed ex­ile from pow­er, now finds him­self kneel­ing be­fore her, a sym­bol of po­lit­i­cal hypocrisy and moral de­cay.”

Ma­haraj said Bharath failed to reignite a dis­il­lu­sioned par­ty through “rigged elec­tions that sti­fled his am­bi­tions” and now “Bharath has cho­sen the path of least re­sis­tance.”

“Like so many spine­less po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunists be­fore him, he has swal­lowed his pride and re­turned to the fold, all the while pre­tend­ing that his ac­tions are dri­ven by a high­er pur­pose,” Ma­haraj said.

Bharath de­clined to re­spond to Ma­haraj say­ing on­ly that every­one was en­ti­tled to their opin­ions.