Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) has sig­nalled its in­ten­tion to con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. COP po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har made the an­nounce­ment while host­ing a press con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s of­fice in Curepe yes­ter­day.

“Yes, we will be con­test­ing,” Ra­mad­har said. How­ev­er, he ad­mit­ted that it would not con­test all 41 con­stituen­cies in T&T.

“We are not fool­ish to sug­gest that we would con­test in every seat. No. There are seats that we have an ad­van­tage in that we will be reach­ing in­to,” he said.

Ra­mad­har al­so an­nounced that the par­ty was not bound by a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MoU) with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and the HOPE par­ty that was en­tered in­to by the par­ty’s for­mer in­ter­im leader Kirk Sin­nette in De­cem­ber last year.

Sin­nette, who was present at the press con­fer­ence, en­tered in­to the MoU be­fore re­sign­ing from the post. Ra­mad­har, who held the post be­tween 2011 and 2016, when he re­signed with one year left on his term, was then ap­point­ed to lead the par­ty. Ra­mad­har de­scribed the MoU as a po­lit­i­cal dis­trac­tion.

“I have not yet seen a com­plet­ed doc­u­ment with the sig­na­tures of all three lead­ers at that time sit­ting to­geth­er and agree­ing on poli­cies, prin­ci­ples, and how they would pro­ceed,” Ra­mad­har said.

“We to­day must look a bit in­ward­ly. The COP is not a stick­er to be placed as an adorn­ment on any­one or any par­ty. The COP is build­ing its strength, its depth, its width, and its stick-to-it-ness not as a stick­er for any­body but as a plat­form of progress for T&T,” he added.

How­ev­er, he did not crit­i­cise Sin­nette for tak­ing the de­ci­sion in the par­ty’s in­ter­est. “I want to con­grat­u­late you on an ef­fort in the very dark days of the COP to reach out to oth­ers. We would con­tin­ue to reach out to oth­ers whose am­bi­tions are aligned with ours,” Ra­mad­har said.

Ra­mad­har did not take a sim­i­lar stance in re­la­tion to an al­liance with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), sev­er­al small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, and trade unions that Sin­nette en­tered in­to last year.

“We are com­mit­ted to work­ing with all those who would help us go in­to pow­er. This is no se­cret. I am mak­ing it plain. It is not op­por­tunis­tic; it is the re­al­i­ty,” Ra­mad­har said.

“The UNC is the dom­i­nant op­po­si­tion force, and any­body who wish­es to re­place this failed gov­ern­ment must work with them. We are in­tent on work­ing with them but not cap in hand.”

He not­ed that af­ter the par­ty made his­to­ry by re­ceiv­ing the high­est-ever votes by a third par­ty in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion but se­cured no seats, it joined with the UNC and oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties to form the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) and se­cured vic­to­ry in the next elec­tion.

While he ad­mit­ted that the coali­tion be­tween the par­ties was not per­fect, he stat­ed that they were able to record achieve­ments dur­ing their sole term in of­fice. “It was a for­mu­la that worked in the past. Of course, there were some fail­ures, but if you don’t learn from your er­rors and im­prove up­on them, then you are wast­ing time,” he said.

“I am a very dif­fer­ent per­son than I was po­lit­i­cal­ly back then. The UNC would have cer­tain­ly grown in some ca­pac­i­ty,” he added.

Ra­mad­har not­ed that the par­ty had al­ready set up sev­er­al com­mit­tees to pro­pose poli­cies and rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­dress top­i­cal na­tion­al is­sues such as the econ­o­my and crime. He al­so not­ed that it (the par­ty) was in the process of fill­ing va­can­cies in key po­si­tions in the par­ty, which were left va­cant for sev­er­al years.

“The per­sons who now pop­u­late these of­fices are com­mit­ted peo­ple who are in­tent on work­ing for the ben­e­fit of T&T through the ve­hi­cle of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple,” he said.

BOX

HOPE, NTA re­spond

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, HOPE deputy leader Karen Nunez-Tesheira said she was not shocked by the po­si­tion tak­en by the COP.

“It has not come as a sur­prise, and it was not un­ex­pect­ed. We are in a very dy­nam­ic sit­u­a­tion. We will see how things de­vel­op and in what di­rec­tion Mr Ra­mad­har de­cides to progress,” Nunez-Tesheira said.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, NTA leader Gary Grif­fith ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments.

How­ev­er, he crit­i­cised Ra­mad­har for mak­ing the an­nounce­ment in re­la­tion to the MoU with­out first con­tact­ing the oth­er par­ties to it. “He did not have the com­mon cour­tesy, re­spect or diplo­ma­cy to be able to con­tact those peo­ple who the COP was in­volved in an agree­ment with,” Grif­fith said. “It says a lot about the cred­i­bil­i­ty and stan­dard of ethics of the leader of the COP.”

Grif­fith sug­gest­ed that Ra­mad­har’s con­duct since re­turn­ing to the post demon­strat­ed that he was in­ter­est­ed in hav­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar elect­ed.

He not­ed that the COP’s pre­vi­ous al­liance with the UNC end­ed in the near de­struc­tion of the par­ty.

“It is quite ob­vi­ous who he is work­ing on be­half of or be­ing di­rect­ed by,” he said. “The one good thing is that the in­de­pen­dent vot­ers are not fool­ish and are not go­ing to be used by any cos­met­ic al­liance be­tween Prakash Ra­mad­har and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar,” he added.