Gail Alexan­der

Some Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers are mov­ing to seek change in the par­ty—again.

A mo­tion was filed yes­ter­day to mount a call at Sun­day’s Na­tion­al Con­gress to bring back all for­mer, in­ac­tive and “parked up” mem­bers and to get a stronger na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive than the cur­rent man­age­ment team.

The mo­tion was filed by UNC life mem­bers, MPs Dr Fuad Khan and Ra­mona Ram­di­al. It is be­ing sup­port­ed by oth­er UNC stal­warts, in­clud­ing at­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la.

Their let­ter to UNC gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Khan calls for the mo­tion to be ap­proved for de­bate at the Con­gress, “as it speaks to the sur­vival of our par­ty and the readi­ness to re­turn to gov­ern­ment.”

The Con­gress will be at the Cou­va South Hall.

The mo­tion ar­rived fol­low­ing last Fri­day’s Elec­toral Col­lege vote on a Pres­i­dent, where Gov­ern­ment’s 38 par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, nine in­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and the House Speak­er’s vote gave Gov­ern­ment’s nom­i­nee, Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo, a win­ning to­tal of 48 votes.

But out of the to­tal of 25 Op­po­si­tion par­lia­men­tar­i­ans (19 MPs and six Sen­a­tors), UNC nom­i­nee Is­rael Khan, SC, re­ceived 22 votes and there were three spoiled bal­lots.

The di­vi­sion and buck­ing of the par­ty line by the three MPs has been seen as an in­dict­ment on Op­po­si­tion UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­tained the lead­er­ship in UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tions last Ju­ly, in a race with Fuad Khan. She ob­tained 11,554 votes and Khan, 644.

The mo­tion filed by Khan and Ram­di­al stat­ed where­as:

• UNC hasn’t been able to achieve elec­toral suc­cess in the past sev­en years since 2015

• Many mem­bers, for­mer past mem­bers, for­mer ex­ec­u­tive, found­ing mem­bers have all been in­ac­tive in the par­ty’s for­ward strat­e­gy; and the par­ty can ben­e­fit from their ex­pe­ri­ence

• The coali­tion of par­ties in 2010 was able to win Gov­ern­ment

Be it re­solved that:

• The lead­er­ship con­sist­ing of the po­lit­i­cal leader and the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (Nat-Ex), find a method of ap­proach to com­mu­ni­cate and em­brace the fore­men­tioned groups of pre­vi­ous ex­pe­ri­enced mem­bers and well-wish­ers

• Fail­ure to de­vel­op such a plan with­in three months should re­sult in a new in­ter­nal elec­tion for a Nat-Ex WITH­OUT the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader be­ing con­test­ed.

The mo­tion list­ed oth­er con­di­tions for such an elec­tion.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Khan told the T&T Guardian, “This isn’t an at­tack on the po­lit­i­cal leader. Apart from the call to re­turn mem­bers, it’s large­ly a method to change the struc­ture of vot­ing to get a stronger in­sti­tu­tion. All Nat-Ex of­fi­cers are from the leader’s slate. But things aren’t go­ing any­where and there’s gen­er­al elec­tion in two and half years, we need to put things in place.

“The three spoilt bal­lots showed some peo­ple were dis­sat­is­fied with both PNM and UNC’s nom­i­nees for Pres­i­dent. But it mag­ni­fies the need for a dif­fer­ent ap­proach.”

Khan added, “A Con­gress is de­signed to place a par­ty on a for­ward pro­jec­tion with ideas that are in­no­v­a­tive, that when used will make a dif­fer­ence in po­lit­i­cal suc­cess. UNC’s Nat-Ex has an over­all re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to mem­bers, not to just prop up a leader.

“I’m sug­gest­ing a way for­ward to de­vel­op a dif­fer­ent ap­proach, that, if ac­cept­ed, will thrust the par­ty in­to win­ning 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. I hope the Nat-Ex and leader un­der­stands the strat­e­gy. I hope good sense pre­vails and it’ll be de­bat­ed. A num­ber of oth­er UNC mem­bers are glad it’s be­ing done.”

If the mo­tion isn’t de­bat­ed, Khan said he’ll keep plug­ging the is­sue.

“The UNC needs changes. We must get a change if more and more mem­bers seek this...”

Par­ty needs ur­gent change - Lal­la

Lal­la mean­while said he’d like to ad­dress the Con­gress to ex­plain his view about the par­ty’s fail­ings.

He cit­ed the par­ty’s han­dling of the vote on the Pres­i­dent, on the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er’s mer­it list and the Vin­cent Nel­son in­dem­ni­ty is­sue.

“We need to build a cred­i­ble op­po­si­tion to meet the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty’s hopes and as­pi­ra­tions. I feel the three spoilt bal­lots were in­ten­tion­al to send a mes­sage of dis­sat­is­fac­tion to the leader. I’m plead­ing for ur­gent change in how UNC ap­proach­es na­tion­al pol­i­tics,” Lal­la said.

“We hope mem­bers will be al­lowed free and frank dis­cus­sions on the is­sue. One would ex­pect the same democ­ra­cy the UNC talks about in Par­lia­ment will be trea­sured and re­spect­ed in the Con­gress’ con­duct.”

Lal­la urged all for­mer/in­ac­tive UNC mem­bers to at­tend and “let their voic­es be heard, as at this point of T&T’s his­to­ry, a strong unit­ed Op­po­si­tion’s need­ed. It’s time to love again, pro­vid­ed the con­di­tions in the ‘home’ are con­ducive.”

Ram­di­al an­tic­i­pat­ed their mo­tion- be­ing vet­ted for ap­proval - will be re­ject­ed by the lead­er­ship.

“But the ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers be­lieve the time is right for uni­ty with­in the par­ty, since we’re in mid-term and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment polls are due soon.

“With uni­fi­ca­tion ex­pe­ri­enced, mem­bers who can add val­ue and knowl­edge to re­build­ing UNC will re­turn. UNC’s in dire need of new po­lit­i­cal strate­gies and an ag­gres­sive mem­ber­ship dri­ve to start re­brand­ing and re­group­ing.”

Some UNC of­fi­cials yes­ter­day said the par­ty al­ways calls for groups to unite with the UNC and “the door is open.” How­ev­er, they felt the mo­tion might cam­ou­flage a “takeover” bid for the par­ty.

UNC deputy lead­ers Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee and Jear­lean John, and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai, didn’t re­spond to T&T Guardian queries on Khan’s mo­tion, or on an­oth­er (un­signed) mo­tion on so­cial me­dia which called for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down and for in­ter­nal elec­tions for a new leader by April.

The doc­u­ment stat­ed this was nec­es­sary, since the UNC needs to put it­self in a po­si­tion to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion and the “cur­rent lead­er­ship has made too many er­rors in its po­lit­i­cal judge­ment and is un­like­ly to beat the PNM.”

It fur­ther stat­ed the UNC “con­tin­ues to loose (sic) val­ued sup­port­ers and mem­bers, with some of them now be­ing part of the PNM. The cur­rent im­age of the par­ty is no longer at­trac­tive to float­ing vot­ers and we must take de­ci­sions with new, fresh lead­er­ship to give the par­ty a more at­trac­tive im­age.”