Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says there are many groups that make up the third con­stituen­cy and her par­ty in­tends to work with all—and that is why the UNC is do­ing as­sess­ments of their var­i­ous ca­pa­bil­i­ties and strengths “to de­ter­mine where best we can com­ple­ment each oth­er”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said this yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing the re­cent pub­licly-man­i­fest­ed rift with Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith.

Af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s warn­ings on Mon­day to small­er par­ties that they will have to car­ry their weight in any arrange­ment with UNC, and that her mem­bers won’t be dis­re­spect­ed, Grif­fith shot back, blam­ing is­sues on deputy leader Jear­lean John. Oth­er NTA sup­port­ers sub­se­quent­ly post­ed so­cial me­dia claims that UNC’s 300,000 mem­ber­ship was at­tained via NTA’s “bridge”.

Jack Warn­er, who’s been a UNC front­lin­er since 2023 af­ter re­unit­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar (af­ter ten years of not talk­ing to each oth­er), said on Wednes­day he’s of­fer­ing to me­di­ate to heal the rift, which he feels isn’t be­yond re­pair.

It’s un­der­stood Warn­er spoke to Grif­fith on Wednes­day and Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, and hopes to have a meet­ing with her on Mon­day.

Yes­ter­day, Warn­er de­clined com­ment on any con­ver­sa­tions or sched­ule.

But he said, “The last time the PNM had a “three-peat” (three terms) was 1971, 1976 and 1981 and T&T re­mem­bers the suf­fer­ing in that time. There­fore, I’ll do any­thing to bring peace to the war­ring par­ties and to have one uni­fied force for the elec­tion and I’ll al­so try to bring all oth­er par­ties to­geth­er for this one force.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked if she’d ac­cept Warn­er’s me­di­a­tion of­fer, if there was any out­reach by Grif­fith since the is­sue broke and if the UNC would talk wit oth­er par­ties such as PEP and oth­ers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t com­ment specif­i­cal­ly on Warn­er and Grif­fith, but said “The UNC will speak to any par­ty, stake­hold­er, in­di­vid­ual or group that would like to work with us in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. We’re open to work­ing with any­one.”

On her view of the en­tire sit­u­a­tion that’s oc­curred, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, said, “The par­ty is ac­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ing with many en­ti­ties at this time. Every­thing will be sort­ed in time. That is just the na­ture of pol­i­tics any­where in the world, same as any fam­i­ly or or­gan­i­sa­tion, we all have dif­fer­ent opin­ions and views at times but that doesn’t mean we can’t find com­mon ground. That’s just the re­al­i­ty of life.”

How­ev­er, she said she wasn’t hurt or dis­ap­point­ed by Grif­fith’s re­marks.

“Not at all. I don’t take any­thing per­son­al­ly when it comes to work-re­lat­ed mat­ters. I think my record in pub­lic life shows that I am very for­giv­ing,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“We’re all hu­man and, there­fore, we are fal­li­ble. A for­giv­ing mind and lov­ing heart are key to a hap­py and suc­cess­ful life...”

Mean­while, UNC ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Nicholas Mor­ris (In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer), who sup­port­ed par­ty founder Bas­deo Pan­day against Per­sad-Bisses­sar for UNC lead­er­ship in 2010, has de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar against crit­i­cism of her state­ment on the treat­ment of mem­bers.

On Mon­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said UNC mem­bers were treat­ed like “sheep” dur­ing the Pan­day pe­ri­od. She didn’t spec­i­fy or give de­tails.

UNC MP Rush­ton Paray sub­se­quent­ly took to so­cial me­dia to say Pan­day’s lega­cy should be pro­tect­ed.

“Stand up to those who mock Pan­day!” Paray said.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she nev­er mocked Pan­day.

Mor­ris said he was so com­mit­ted to Pan­day in 2010 that he de­clined a di­rect of­fer from Per­sad-Bisses­sar to speak on her plat­form.

“As a for­mer sup­port­er who stuck with Mr Pan­day un­til the very end in 2010, we can­not take Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­cent state­ment on ‘sheep’ out of con­text with­out analysing the true mean­ing. I’ve func­tioned faith­ful­ly un­der both lead­ers and seen UNC’s growth.

“While we’ll al­ways be grate­ful for Mr Pan­day’s work, we can nev­er dis­count the defin­ing de­vel­op­ment of the UNC un­der Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Mor­ris said some mem­bers were call­ing for the de­fence of Pan­day’s lega­cy’ de­spite the fact that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment nev­er en­croached on such.

“If there’s one per­son who’s worked to pre­serve Pan­day’s lega­cy, it’s Kam­la, by keep­ing the UNC alive, ex­pand­ing its suc­cess and en­sur­ing UNC de­vel­ops in­to a na­tion­al po­lit­i­cal in­sti­tu­tion. Her state­ment must not be viewed as a ‘buff’ against Mr Pan­day, be­cause it was her sim­ply re­it­er­at­ing how far we’ve come as a par­ty.”