Rose­marie Sant

One sit­ting Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment on the bench of the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein, will chal­lenge par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the top post. The Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la MP yes­ter­day filed ver­i­fi­ca­tion pa­pers for the lead­er­ship post ahead of nom­i­na­tion day next Wednes­day.

The de­ci­sion now means there will be a three-way fight for the UNC lead­er­ship with Vas­ant Bharath al­so in the No­vem­ber 26 elec­tion race.

Newal­lo-Ho­sein will be go­ing it alone how­ev­er and will not be field­ing a slate, un­like Bharath who has a full slate who will be fil­ing nom­i­na­tion pa­pers next week.

Asked what prompt­ed her de­ci­sion, Newal­lo-Ho­sein said, “I took a prin­ci­pled stand against the de­ci­sion of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive to have the lead­er­ship elec­tion to­geth­er with that of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and I felt as though had I just stayed with the sta­tus quo, I would be part of the prob­lem as op­posed to part of the so­lu­tion.”

She added: “I love Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar very much but my de­ci­sion has noth­ing to do with whether I re­spect or ad­mire her. I am not do­ing this out of spite. This is a prin­ci­pled stance. The mem­ber­ship is hurt­ing, they are trau­ma­tised, it is im­por­tant to un­der­stand how will the heal­ing be­gin.”

She said her de­ci­sion fol­lows con­cerns about the de­ci­sion by the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive to de­fy the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion and have the lead­er­ship elec­tion with that of the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive al­though it was not due.

“The rea­son why the framers of the con­sti­tu­tion had the lead­er­ship elec­tion sep­a­rate to the Na­tex is be­cause they want­ed to pre­serve the mem­ber­ship. If the leader is con­test­ing with a slate it means he or she has tak­en a side.”

She as­sured her de­ci­sion will not im­pact her re­la­tion­ship with Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment be­cause “we are a team.”

But she said, “I be­lieve peo­ple are ask­ing for change and we can on­ly bring change if we are part of that change.”