Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) po­lit­i­cal leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said yes­ter­day’s uni­ty meet­ing with Bas­deo Pan­day wasn’t sim­ply about “re­mov­ing a gov­ern­ment,” but about plans for T&T’s fu­ture as the coun­try is in cri­sis.

Speak­ing pri­or to the 6 pm meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said the COP is se­ri­ous about elec­toral and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­forms and is al­ways pre­pared to speak to peo­ple on this mat­ter.

“We saw what hap­pened in 2007 when 22 per cent of the pop­u­la­tion was dis­en­fran­chised, so our in­ter­est is putting coun­try over par­ty and po­lit­i­cal am­bi­tion,” she said.

Pan­day re­cent­ly called for a meet­ing with small par­ties to form a unit­ed ef­fort to con­test up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. He said that would be the on­ly way to have rep­re­sen­ta­tion of all in Par­lia­ment and for such groups to seek con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form. Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sev­er­al small par­ties agreed to at­tend.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) leader David Ab­du­lah was un­cer­tain about at­tend­ing. Nei­ther con­firm­ing or deny­ing at­ten­dance, he said he ha have spo­ken to Pan­day be­fore the meet­ing which was planned as an open fo­rum for at­ten­dees to air their views on how they might go for­ward.

“We have noth­ing to hide, the aim is on­ly to unite the peo­ple who be­lieve greater rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Par­lia­ment,” Pan­day said pri­or to the meet­ing,

Pan­day added that the fact he called a meet­ing in the mid­dle of Car­ni­val and peo­ple agreed to at­tend showed the lev­el of con­cern about T&T. He said many re­spond­ed to his call, though sev­er­al asked why he had sought a meet­ing in the height of Car­ni­val since they had fetes to at­tend.

“We know how long the Car­ni­val sea­son is and the ac­tu­al Car­ni­val days are on­ly 48 hours. But af­ter Car­ni­val life con­tin­ues and we have a lot to deal with in Trinidad and To­ba­go. I on­ly want to say I’ve tried,” he said.

Pan­day added that he “won’t be side­tracked with ar­gu­ments and ig­no­rance” from UNC MPs crit­i­cal of his meet­ing, say­ing he was aware many might be con­cerned that any third force would split votes.