Derek Achong

Ca­lyp­son­ian Morel “King Lu­ta” Pe­ters has threat­ened to take le­gal ac­tion against the Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TU­CO) over its fail­ure to hold a by-elec­tion fol­low­ing the pass­ing of for­mer TU­CO pres­i­dent Lu­ta­lo “Broth­er Re­sis­tance” Mas­sim­ba in Ju­ly. 

In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to TU­CO’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, last week, and ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, at­tor­ney Pe­ter Tay­lor, who is rep­re­sent­ing Pe­ters, chal­lenged for­mer TU­CO vice pres­i­dent Ains­ley King be­ing in­stalled in the top post fol­low­ing a meet­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s gen­er­al coun­cil, late last month. 

Re­fer­ring to a press re­lease is­sued by TU­CO fol­low­ing the meet­ing, Tay­lor said: “The fore­go­ing ex­cerpt gives the en­tire­ly mis­lead­ing and false im­pres­sion that up­on the death of a sit­ting pres­i­dent, the vice pres­i­dent au­to­mat­i­cal­ly as­sumes the sub­stan­tive of­fice of the pres­i­dent.” 

Tay­lor point­ed to Ar­ti­cle 9(j) of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s con­sti­tu­tion, which states that the Gen­er­al Coun­cil has the pow­er to fill a va­can­cy by the show of hands or by se­cret bal­lot un­til the by-elec­tion takes place which will be no lat­er than three months of such va­can­cy aris­ing. 

He al­so high­light­ed Ar­ti­cle 13(2) of the con­sti­tu­tion, which he said states that the pres­i­dent shall be elect­ed by se­cret bal­lot on­ly. 

“Thus while by Ar­ti­cle 9(j) the Gen­er­al Coun­cil has the pow­er to fill a va­can­cy by a show of hands or by se­cret bal­lot up­on a va­can­cy aris­ing, this pro­vi­sion in my view is a tem­po­rary or stop-gap mea­sure to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity in the or­gan­i­sa­tion up­on the sud­den or un­time­ly death or res­ig­na­tion of a mem­ber but can­not su­per­sede the clear pro­vi­sions of Ar­ti­cle 13(2) in so far as it re­lates to the elec­tion of the Pres­i­dent to the sub­stan­tive post,” Tay­lor said. 

Tay­lor sought to high­light the role of the pres­i­dent, which in­cludes pre­sid­ing over all meet­ings ex­cept zon­al meet­ings, the ap­point­ment of com­mit­tees and cler­i­cal staff and be­ing the chief ne­go­tia­tor for the ad­vance­ment of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. 

“The pres­i­dent’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and pow­ers are there­fore both wide-rang­ing and far-reach­ing and his elec­tion ought to be se­cured by broad con­sen­sus as con­tem­plat­ed by Ar­ti­cle 13(2),” Tay­lor said.

Tay­lor called up­on the or­gan­i­sa­tion to host the by-elec­tion for the post of pres­i­dent in­stead of seek­ing to fill the va­can­cy left by King be­ing el­e­vat­ed. 

“Should you fail to do so, please be ad­vised that we have our client’s firm in­struc­tions to ex­plore all le­gal av­enues to com­pel you to do same,” Tay­lor said. 

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, King re­ject­ed Tay­lor’s and by ex­ten­sion Pe­ters’ claims. 

“As far as I am con­cerned with that let­ter, I do see it go­ing any­where,” King said. 

“The Gen­er­al Coun­cil made the de­ci­sion and has the pow­er to do so. No court in Trinidad can come and re­verse that. No­body can re­verse that,” King said. 

He first­ly ques­tioned why the le­gal cor­re­spon­dence was sent to the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary and not di­rect­ly to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil for its con­sid­er­a­tion. 

King, the for­mer Chair­man of TU­CO’s To­ba­go Zone, not­ed that af­ter Mas­sim­ba passed away on Ju­ly 13, he called a meet­ing of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil to chart the way for­ward and re­ceived the nod to take con­trol of the or­gan­i­sa­tion. He al­so stat­ed that he nev­er as­sumed the post but was rather du­ly ap­point­ed through a vote of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil. 

“I threw the di­rec­tion and fu­ture of the or­gan­i­sa­tion in the hands of them. They were the ones who de­cid­ed that based on what is hap­pen­ing and the in­ter­pre­ta­tion, let us have a vote and vote was tak­en,” King said. 

King said that the al­leged need for a se­cret bal­lot bye-elec­tion for the post of Pres­i­dent was raised and the gen­er­al coun­cil re­ject­ed it as mem­bers point­ed out that a vote by a show of hands had been used to fill va­can­cies in the ex­ec­u­tive three times in the past with­out ob­jec­tion.  

“It did not hap­pen once, it did not hap­pen twice and no­body recog­nised that there was a need for a by-elec­tion in three months,” King said, as he not­ed that Pe­ters was ac­tive in the or­gan­i­sa­tion when the prece­dent was set in the past. 

King stat­ed that if Pe­ters had an is­sue he could have writ­ten to the Gen­er­al Coun­cil and sought an au­di­ence at its meet­ing or make a re­quest through the South Zone as it had made con­tri­bu­tions over the need to fill the post of Vice Pres­i­dent af­ter his el­e­va­tion.

King sug­gest­ed that Pe­ters’ com­plaint was not based on prin­ci­ple or gen­uine con­cern for the or­gan­i­sa­tion but based on a per­son­al is­sue with him. 

“He is writ­ing on what I con­sid­er to be ha­tred. You see, for years he tried to get me to give him sup­port in TU­CO and I gave it to Broth­er Re­sis­tance,” King said, as he claimed that the votes of TU­CO’s To­ba­go Zone usu­al­ly proved to be the de­cider in TU­CO ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. 

“Peo­ple call me and cussed me stink af­ter Lu­ta lost on two oc­ca­sions be­cause the To­ba­go vote did not go in favour of him,” he added.