Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

For­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter Jack Warn­er be­lieves the frac­ture in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Gary Grif­fith can be re­paired, and he can al­so play a role in mend­ing it.

Warn­er’s com­ment came yes­ter­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Grif­fith trad­ed ver­bal jabs over the NTA’s abil­i­ty to bring a mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tion to the UNC’s push in next year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Even with the ap­par­ent rift, Warn­er said he will not let the par­ties go their sep­a­rate ways.

“The sit­u­a­tion is, it’s not, of course, ir­re­triev­able and I think di­a­logue on both sides can re­solve it and I will do what I can to as­sist in get­ting that di­a­logue to­geth­er,” Warn­er said.

He said he would not com­ment fur­ther on the mat­ter, as he wants to be in the best po­si­tion to me­di­ate in the is­sue.

UNC deputy leader Jear­lean John al­so again yes­ter­day re­fused to ad­dress Grif­fith’s claim that it was she who was in­flu­enc­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar in her at­tack against the NTA.

Mean­while, the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), a for­mer UNC coali­tion part­ner, said it knew ex­act­ly which par­ty Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re­fer­ring to dur­ing the cot­tage meet­ing in Preysal.

“You know there’s a say­ing that when you pelt a stone at a pig pen the one that squeals is the one that got hit? So ob­vi­ous­ly, there’s some­thing go­ing on with her­self and Gary Grif­fith be­cause Gary re­spond­ed right away, and the MSJ, we have noth­ing to do with that, that does not both­er us,” MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah said.

Asked if the MSJ will en­ter­tain Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s in­vi­ta­tion for par­ties to join her, Ab­du­lah said curt­ly, “Ab­solute­ly not.”

He added, “She can say what­ev­er she wants but I know how the UNC be­haves in a part­ner­ship. Quite apart from her want­i­ng to tell peo­ple not to be dis­re­spect­ful, I know the UNC was high­ly dis­re­spect­ful to us and with what we brought to the ta­ble. And we brought a whole lot to the ta­ble.”

Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Kirt Sin­nette al­so said while it has in­ten­tions of con­test­ing the gen­er­al elec­tion, it is un­like­ly a UNC ban­ner will be by its side.

“The COP learnt their les­son in 2010 and in go­ing for­ward we con­tin­ue to en­sure and hope that if we are to join with any­one, they must be like-mind­ed cit­i­zens, seek­ing the best in­ter­est for the peo­ple of this coun­try,” Sin­nette said.

Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty’s (PEP) Phillip Alexan­der told Guardian Me­dia they will con­sid­er Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for a part­ner­ship but on­ly if the UNC shows a gen­uine in­ten­tion to mean­ing­ful­ly tack­le the big is­sues af­fect­ing peo­ple. How­ev­er, he con­ced­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar had a point in Preysal.

“Every­body should be pulling their weight, this shouldn’t be about show up, make a name for your­self, make some noise and get elect­ed. But she is wrong when she cas­ti­gat­ed so­cial me­dia and I know that she does not un­der­stand the pow­er of so­cial me­dia to make change. If it was not for so­cial me­dia, we would not have a Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma,” he said.

“But I un­der­stand that she is at­tack­ing his style of get­ting so­cial me­dia in­flu­encers to ped­dle what­ev­er mes­sage he puts out.”

But he urged Per­sad-Bisses­sar not to dis­re­spect oth­er par­ties if she ex­pects re­spect in re­turn.

Tak­ing to his Face­book page yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray seemed to sug­gest the need for a dif­fer­ent ap­proach.

Re­fer­ring to the lega­cy of for­mer UNC founder and leader Bas­deo Pan­day, Paray said, “He utilised em­pa­thy and renowned com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills in de­liv­er­ing his phi­los­o­phy of an em­pow­ered peo­ple in a land of so­cial eq­ui­ty and eco­nom­ic up­lift.

“He as­pired for a mod­ern so­ci­ety in which every­one finds a seat around the ta­ble, ca­pa­ble of reach­ing their fullest po­ten­tial and cre­at­ing a bet­ter coun­try for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

“Mr Pan­day knew all along that he was on­ly as good as the peo­ple who shared his mis­sion and com­mit­ment, and he, there­fore, cul­ti­vat­ed ties with those “on the ground.”

He added, “We must nev­er per­mit any­one to un­der­mine and dis­par­age Mr Pan­day’s proud lega­cy, be­cause, in do­ing so, we de­mor­alise the best ver­sion of our­selves and our ca­pac­i­ty to reach the fullest promise of our na­tion.

“We owe a lot to Mr Pan­day. We must up­hold his mem­o­ry by stand­ing up to those who would be­lit­tle and mock his life’s work.

An­a­lysts agree with UNC leader

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said there was noth­ing wrong with Per­sad-Bisses­sar call­ing for oth­er par­ties to pull their weight and show re­spect to her par­ty if they are seek­ing a part­ner­ship.

“What the UNC leader said is what was ex­pect­ed to be said. She has to de­fend her par­ty. Her par­ty had got­ten a lot of licks when the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship was in gov­ern­ment, that they had giv­en too much away to the oth­er mem­bers of the Part­ner­ship. So, there’s noth­ing wrong with what she would have said in sim­ply say­ing that any­one con­sid­er­ing a merg­er with us, don’t ex­pect that my par­ty alone will do the work and don’t ex­pect to the get the ben­e­fits based on the pace of the UNC.”

He sug­gest­ed Grif­fith should not have re­spond­ed to Per­sad-Bisses­sar via a me­dia re­lease.

“Is it a break­down or sim­ply a mat­ter of Mr Grif­fith get­ting ahead of him­self? I think so. If it’s any­thing, he is shoot­ing him­self in the foot rather than Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar shoot­ing her­self in the foot.

“But again, Mr Grif­fith would know what his in­ten­tions are. You have to look at this in con­text, Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar called for nom­i­na­tions some time ago. Be­fore that, Grif­fith called for can­di­dates to of­fer them­selves up for all 41 con­stituen­cies.

“Was there any in­cli­na­tion that there was go­ing to be any merg­er or ac­com­mo­da­tion? And the sim­ple an­swer is no.”

But Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said she saw the breakup com­ing, af­ter both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Grif­fith re­cent­ly shared dif­fer­ent views on the need for a state of emer­gency at the UNC-host­ed an­ti-crime town hall.

“I think he (Grif­fith) has been try­ing to as­sert his au­ton­o­my and in­de­pen­dence, while at the same time us­ing a UNC plat­form and she would have been un­der pres­sure be­cause he has been mak­ing con­trary state­ments which were not aligned to the UNC,” Ram­per­sad said.

Not­ing that Per­sad-Bisses­sar did the po­lit­i­cal­ly ex­pe­di­ent thing, she said, “I don’t think it is go­ing to work out. In pol­i­tics, there is no right and wrong but what is po­lit­i­cal­ly ex­pe­di­ent.

“I think she nipped it in the bud, that if you are go­ing to speak against the UNC and want some lev­el of au­ton­o­my, then you have to bring some­thing. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. You can’t ben­e­fit from the UNC crowd, plat­form and re­sources and then you still want to be au­tonomous and in­de­pen­dent with your views.”

She said right now the UNC may not even need the sup­port of third par­ties, as there are no vi­able op­tions.

“I don’t think it mat­ters if they are will­ing or not, even HOPE is hope­less. What she has to try to do is get that third voice and that is not a par­ty, it is a group of peo­ple who are tra­di­tion­al­ly on the fence or who do not like to vote,” Ram­per­sad said.