Gail Alexan­der

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress stal­wart Car­los John has urged a change in the par­ty’s lead­er­ship to­wards con­tender Vas­ant Bharath - but for­mer MP Su­ruj Ram­bachan has ex­pressed con­cern about pos­si­ble low vot­er turnout in elec­tions on Sun­day.

Ram­bachan said the cam­paign’s been bru­tal and heal­ing may not oc­cur for a very long time.

The UNC’s lead­er­ship and its ex­ec­u­tive posts will be con­test­ed from 8 am to 6 pm on Sun­day at 78 polling sta­tions, in­clud­ing one in To­ba­go. The rarest num­ber of sta­tions - five - will be in Siparia.

In­cum­bent leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, de­fend­ing the po­si­tion, is ex­pect­ed to speak at a UNC vir­tu­al meet­ing tonight. Bill­boards sup­port­ing Bharath have been set up in Tarou­ba, Chase Vil­lage, McBean, Pi­ar­co and Princes Town.

Bharath re­cent­ly spoke of re­turn­ing stal­warts who’ve been alien­at­ed from the par­ty and hav­ing an el­ders’ com­mit­tee com­pris­ing for­mer MPs. Sub­se­quent­ly, it was re­vealed that among those sup­port­ing Bharath are for­mer Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la MP Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein and for­mer MP Adesh Nanan.

His team mem­bers in­di­cat­ed cer­tain well-known re­cent for­mer MPs sup­port him - but some of those yes­ter­day re­mained silent.

John, a for­mer MP and min­is­ter in the Bas­deo Pan­day UNC regime, yes­ter­day said a change in the par­ty will be a breath of fresh air.

“Look­ing at UNC, it’s stag­nat­ed and re­quires re­birth. We give every­one full ku­dos for their con­tri­bu­tion but when the race ends, it’s ben­e­fi­cial for the en­ti­ty - and the coun­try it’s en­trust­ed to pro­tect - to hand over the ba­ton,” John told the T&T Guardian.

For­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) MP in the Op­po­si­tion Prakash Ra­mad­har says he isn’t el­i­gi­ble to vote but not­ed Bharath would be an as­set to any par­ty.

“ ...When Vas­ant was in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship he was al­ways an as­set and when­ev­er there was dif­fi­cul­ty, he had a so­lu­tion. I look for­ward to a healthy UNC elec­tion as they’re the le­git­i­mate Op­po­si­tion es­sen­tial to democ­ra­cy,” Ra­mad­har said.

“I wish all con­tenders and UNC well and par­tic­u­lar­ly that in the end, more cred­i­bil­i­ty will be added to the pol­i­tics than can be re­moved.”

For­mer PP MP Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine, when asked if she was sup­port­ing Bharath, said she wasn’t in­volved in the elec­tions and as of right now “hadn’t de­cid­ed if she’d vote.”

Roop­nar­ine’s re­place­ment, ex-Oropouche West MP Vidya Guyadeen-Gopeesingh, said, “I wish every­one the best … I’ll sup­port who can take UNC in­to gov­ern­ment and who’d would have ap­pre­ci­at­ed foot sol­diers’ work.”

Ram­bachan said Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s cam­paign had failed to present plans for the UNC and was de­pend­ing on mem­bers’ emo­tions.

“Hav­ing peo­ple sign sup­port let­ters and make state­ments doesn’t point to deep changes,” Ram­bachan said.

He said Bharath pre­sent­ed a plan but he (Ram­bachan) dis­agreed with Bharath that the elec­tion is about cul­ture of In­di­an loy­al­ty.

Ram­bachan said, “UNC sup­port­ers left the par­ty in 1981 for ONR. They al­so left to sup­port COP. They change for the right rea­son and where they’re con­vinced you’re pre­sent­ing a log­i­cal case. They’ve nev­er been afraid to change. (Win­ston) Dook­er­an won Tu­na­puna. But the same vot­ers didn’t vote for UNC in 2015.

“Di­vi­sions now be­ing cre­at­ed will last a long, long time. I won’t be sur­prised if peo­ple search for and even cre­ate their own third force, or force uni­ty like they did in 1983 with the ac­com­mo­da­tion that led to NAR.”

Ram­bachan said the UNC’s cam­paign has been ac­ri­mo­nious, es­pe­cial­ly on so­cial me­dia and he felt there was risk of low turnout.

“A di­vid­ed UNC will fall in 2025. The road to re­cu­per­a­tion af­ter elec­tions will be long, I don’t think there’ll be full heal­ing: this elec­tion was bru­tal for the wrong rea­sons. But mem­bers must put a halt to the rut that’s set in - di­rect what they want.”