Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

With the open­ing of Par­lia­ment set for this Fri­day, Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har is still in the dark about his po­ten­tial role in the up­com­ing ses­sion.

How­ev­er, Ra­mad­har said he re­mains op­ti­mistic that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will ful­fil the agree­ment they had fol­low­ing ne­go­ti­a­tions.

Ra­mad­har’s COP was part of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) Coali­tion of In­ter­ests and con­test­ed two seats in the last gen­er­al elec­tion as part of this arrange­ment.

Sources close to the Gov­ern­ment said the for­mer Min­is­ter of Le­gal Af­fairs was promised the po­si­tion of Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

Ra­mad­har, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, would not con­firm.

With the cer­e­mo­ni­al open­ing of Par­lia­ment to­mor­row, the COP leader was asked if he was start­ing to feel as if he had been for­got­ten or over­looked.

How­ev­er, he said that was not the case.

“Well, let me just say, there is time for her to ful­fil the ex­pec­ta­tions. So, I’m not trou­bled.”

But the COP leader ad­mit­ted his sup­port­ers were start­ing to feel anx­ious.

“It is a bar­rage, wher­ev­er I go, and the calls and mes­sages I’ve been re­ceiv­ing, it’s a tremen­dous num­ber of per­sons who are in­quir­ing as to what is hap­pen­ing, first of all, with the par­ty, and al­so with me, in terms of what is go­ing to be my in­volve­ment. So, of course, there’s a lot of anx­i­ety over that,” he said.

Asked what mes­sage he had for those who may be cu­ri­ous about his po­lit­i­cal fu­ture, Ra­mad­har said, “Well, first of all, that I’m very hap­py that we’re able to re­move the PNM, who had no plan, and ten years of fail­ure. We worked to­wards in­stalling this Gov­ern­ment, and ex­pect that they will do far bet­ter for the coun­try, in the past ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

On May 12, when Guardian Me­dia asked Ra­mad­har if he felt slight­ed af­ter not re­ceiv­ing a min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lio, de­spite be­ing part of the coali­tion, he said, “There were ne­go­ti­a­tions, there were agree­ments and mat­ters are in the works at this point in time. And I ex­pect, as I know per­son­al­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter, to me, has al­ways kept her word. So that is a mat­ter that will man­i­fest it­self in due course.”

On April 28, the Con­gress of the Peo­ple con­test­ed two seats as part of the coali­tion, al­beit un­der its own ban­ner for St Ann’s East and Port-of-Spain South. Both seats were won by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

The Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s leader, Phillip Alexan­der who was al­so a part of the Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, has since been ap­point­ed as Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing.

Ernesto Ke­sar, vice pres­i­dent of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union, was placed as a Min­is­ter in the En­er­gy Min­istry and Clyde El­der was ap­point­ed as a Min­is­ter in the Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­istry.

Both con­test­ed un­der a UNC ban­ner.