Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Re­porter

Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots’ Rod­ney Charles, who may be fac­ing the loss of his seat­ing po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment next to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, says it doesn’t mat­ter where he sits in the House. More sig­nif­i­cant, he says, are the “en­dur­ing prin­ci­ples of in­tegri­ty, ethics and de­cen­cy” on which he firm­ly stands.

This, af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Mon­day said she was hurt at an MP who sits next to her in Par­lia­ment be­ing “treach­er­ous”, and her call to UNC whip David Lee that they need to “do some­thing about that.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did so at a Star slate meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas. The Stars, which she sup­ports, are con­test­ing in the par­ty’s June 15 na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion against the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) led by MP Rush­ton Paray. Charles is part of the UPs.

Charles sits at Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s left hand in Par­lia­ment. Paray and UP mem­bers Dr Rai Rag­bir and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly sit low­er down the front bench. MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, al­so a UP mem­ber, is a back­bencher.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Mon­day slammed the UP, in­clud­ing al­lud­ing to the vote on the Pres­i­dent when three UNC bal­lots were spoiled.

She said, “How de­cep­tive can a per­son be ... they sit like snakes in their seat ... one sit­ting next to me by the way.

“One still sit­ting next to me in the Par­lia­ment! Sit­ting at my left hand! They sit so de­cep­tive­ly ... treach­er­ous is the word. I with­draw ‘snake’. Let’s leave the snakes in the Bal­isi­er. How de­cep­tive can you be?”

While she spoke, a voice note was played with Charles’ voice say­ing the UNC had be­come a par­ty which every­one with in­tegri­ty wants to avoid. The video of Charles speak­ing was al­so played.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “I see a man on a plat­form who sits next to me in Par­lia­ment ... you know that kind hurt­ing me, you know, Chief whip, we should do some­thing about that!

“The Bible tells us there’s no greater sin than in­grat­i­tude, un­grate­ful­ness! So I see a video some­body sent me and I’m see­ing this per­son say­ing ‘no­body with in­tegri­ty wants to have any­thing to do with the UNC’. But you there cam­paign­ing to take over the UNC! You have to be crazy! Bi-po­lar is a very good word! You’ve been there 15 years ... un­grate­ful­ness!”

She said she’d heard one UP mem­ber’s sis­ter got a house/work while an­oth­er’s hus­band got a pro­mo­tion.

“When you sell your soul, you be­tray the peo­ple who gave you the po­si­tion you’re in.”

Whip David Lee didn’t re­ply to queries yes­ter­day on if Charles’ seat might be changed.

‘I brought ex­cel­lence to UNC’

MP Charles re­spond­ed via a state­ment to queries over the at­tack by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, say­ing, “In re­sponse to threats that I’ll be re­moved from the front bench: I was in­vit­ed to sit at the ta­ble be­cause of what I brought to the menu, not be­cause it was full and I was hun­gry. It mat­ters not where I sit in Par­lia­ment. Of more sig­nif­i­cance are the en­dur­ing prin­ci­ples of in­tegri­ty, ethics and de­cen­cy on which I firm­ly stand.”

He added, “Where I sit says more about the present lead­er­ship than about me. Con­trary to what was es­poused (Mon­day), I have an ac­com­plished life in and out of pol­i­tics. Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gests that I’m un­grate­ful, un­mind­ful of the fact that I brought to the ta­ble of the UNC a life­time of ex­cel­lent per­for­mance. It was an ex­change and not a hand­out.”

De­tail­ing his ca­reer, he said, “I stand on my hard-earned achieve­ments; it wasn’t a one-way street. In Par­lia­ment, I stood up mano a mano to Dr Kei­th Row­ley from 2020 to 2024, I spoke on 44 bills and asked 53 Prime Min­is­ter’s ques­tions.

“When Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cruit­ed me in 2010 to be UN Am­bas­sador, I was nei­ther in­ex­pe­ri­enced, undis­tin­guished nor was I job hunt­ing. I was in that same po­si­tion when re­cruit­ed to be­come Na­pari­ma MP and I wasn’t hand to mouth when re­cruit­ed in 2014 to be­come cam­paign man­ag­er. Whilst I’m grate­ful to her, the ex­change was mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial.”

He added, “When the time comes, and I meet my mak­er, I think it mat­ters not whether I sat in the front, back, side or out­side in Par­lia­ment but the man­ner in which I lived my life. Con­sis­tent with my be­lief in the need for a gen­er­a­tional trans­fer of po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship, I sup­port MP Paray’s slate ...”

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Paray added, “Seat­ing arrange­ments are the Chief Whip’s call. Quite frankly, since we’re all equals in the Par­lia­ment, it mat­ters not where I sit but where I stand and con­tin­ue to stand on mat­ters af­fect­ing cit­i­zens’ lives.”