Gail Alexan­der

There is ac­tion ahead in the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) be­sides in­ter­nal elec­tions.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath has ac­cused UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of vi­o­lat­ing the UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion by hold­ing both UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions and lead­er­ship elec­tions to­geth­er in June with­out prop­er pro­ce­dure.

He has warned all av­enues will be ex­plored to pre­vent “fur­ther des­e­cra­tion of the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion and ero­sion of mem­bers’ rights.”

Bharath con­firmed this yes­ter­day af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, at last Sat­ur­day’s UNC Na­tion­al Con­gress, an­nounced the UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions for June 26.

A cir­cu­lat­ed list of posts for con­test in­cludes the lead­er­ship.

Bharath and ex-min­is­ter Ra­mona Ram­di­al who’d un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the 2020 Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex) elec­tion, at­tend­ed the Con­gress.

They and for­mer UNC stal­wart De­vant Ma­haraj point­ed out the UNC’s lead­er­ship elec­tion is due De­cem­ber 2023 — not this year — and can­not be added to Na­tex elec­tions “just like that.”

Bharath said yes­ter­day, “Our great par­ty has be­come a cult and a play­thing for Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, with big men and women fawn­ing at her feet for po­si­tions of sup­posed pow­er. One would have thought that with the de­struc­tion and may­hem tak­ing place un­der the PNM’s watch, the op­por­tu­ni­ty would have been grabbed with both hands to give hope to a bur­dened, frus­trat­ed pop­u­la­tion and re­store cred­i­bil­i­ty and con­fi­dence in an or­gan­i­sa­tion that she’s led to 13 suc­ces­sive na­tion­al de­feats.”

“In­stead Mrs Bisses­sar con­tin­ues tram­pling on the Con­sti­tu­tion of the on­ly par­ty that has a chance of re­mov­ing the PNM.”

He said the UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion is very clear on the term of of­fice of both po­lit­i­cal leader and the Na­tex, and the hold­ing of its re­spec­tive elec­tions sep­a­rate­ly, “the pur­pose of which is to en­sure con­ti­nu­ity af­ter an elec­tion is held. The on­ly way that can be al­tered is by hold­ing a Na­tion­al As­sem­bly for that pur­pose and se­cur­ing two-thirds of the votes of the del­e­gates present”.

He said that wasn’t done and by sub­vert­ing this de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process, “Once again Mrs Bisses­sar’s demon­strat­ed she’s com­plete­ly shorn of con­science and will do what­ev­er is po­lit­i­cal­ly con­ve­nient to sat­is­fy her lust for pow­er at the ex­pense of UNC’s long-serv­ing sup­port­ers.”

Ramona Ramdial, former Couva North MP.

“But true be­liev­ers of democ­ra­cy in the UNC in­tend to ex­plore all av­enues to pre­vent fur­ther des­e­cra­tion of the UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion and ero­sion of mem­bers’ rights and en­sure pro­ce­dures for par­ty struc­tures and par­tic­i­pa­tion are up­held prop­er­ly.”

“It is said that the way you run your par­ty af­fairs is in­dica­tive of how you will run the af­fairs of the coun­try. If giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty. In this re­spect, Mrs Bisses­sar con­tin­ues to show her true colours.”

Ac­cus­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar of em­ploy­ing an “any­thing goes so long as I can get away with it” at­ti­tude Bharath asked whether this was “the ex­am­ple we are set­ting for our chil­dren and are sur­prised by their be­hav­iour in schools.”

“Mrs Bisses­sar sin­gle-hand­ed­ly con­tin­ues to keep Kei­th Row­ley and the PNM in pow­er and con­tin­ues de­stroy­ing the hopes of thou­sands of peo­ple. I refuse to le­git­imise a cor­rupt, un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process but I re­main res­olute­ly com­mit­ted to UNC’s loy­al hard­work­ing sup­port­ers and to UNC’s found­ing prin­ci­ples.”

Ram­di­al added, “At our first Na­tion­al Con­gress in two years, Kam­la vi­o­lat­ed UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion. The UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tions were due De­cem­ber 6, 2022, and now she plans for it to be held June 26. But the lead­er­ship elec­tion is due De­cem­ber 6, 2023 and at no point did she re­quest of the Na­tion­al Con­gress to amend UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion for the post of Po­lit­i­cal Leader to be con­test­ed along­side in­ter­nal posts in June.”

“PRO Kirk Meighoo an­nounced the Po­lit­i­cal Leader’s po­si­tion would al­so be con­test­ed along with in­ter­nal elec­tion po­si­tions. But this is ul­tra vires the UNC Con­sti­tu­tion and il­le­gal.”

“For these two dis­tinct elec­tions to be held si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion must first be amend­ed. Such a mo­tion must be com­mu­ni­cat­ed to Na­tion­al Con­gress, in ad­vance. There­after two-thirds of the del­e­gates must agree to the mo­tion to amend and that wasn’t done (Sat­ur­day). How can we con­tin­ue to trust Kam­la if she con­tin­ues vi­o­lat­ing her own par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion?”

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo didn’t an­swer What­sApp queries on the is­sue.

Devant Maharaj, political activist and former UNC Senator.

Kam­la did it again — De­vant

UNC mem­ber De­vant Ma­haraj - though in Cana­da - added, “The an­nounce­ment of the in­ter­nal elec­tion is an­oth­er nail in the UNC’s cof­fin of the UNC as it yet again vi­o­lates UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion.

“Its Con­sti­tu­tion is clear that the post of po­lit­i­cal leader and the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive must be con­sid­ered sep­a­rate­ly. On­ly a con­sti­tu­tion­al amend­ment via a Na­tion­al As­sem­bly could sanc­tion such a change and not a Par­lia­men­tary arm meet­ing which was held last Sat­ur­day. UNC’s Gan­ga Singh first raised the alarm about this abuse of pow­er in 2017 and was po­lit­i­cal­ly os­tracised.”

“This is the third oc­ca­sion which Per­sad-Bisses­sar lead­er­ship has shown con­tempt and dis­re­gard for the UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion in or­der to fa­cil­i­tate a sham elec­tion,” he added.

“The right-think­ing, pro­fes­sion­al, ed­u­cat­ed, hard-work­ing tax­pay­er can see that there’s no hope in UNC un­der the present lead­er­ship. One on­ly has to ex­am­ine UNC’s han­dling of the prop­er­ty tax is­sue to re­al­ize that there is no strate­gic lead­er­ship di­rec­tion, on­ly lead­er­ship by so­cial me­dia self­ies and one-lin­er sound bytes. This an­nounce­ment of the con­tin­ued per­ver­sion of UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion by Kam­la will on­ly en­sure PNM re­mains in of­fice an­oth­er 10 years.”

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