“No one cares!”

That was Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s dis­mis­sive re­sponse yes­ter­day, af­ter so-called dis­si­dent MP Dr Rai Rag­bir pulled out of the par­ty’s screen­ing for his Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la seat be­cause he could no longer as­so­ciate him­self with the par­ty un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship.

“I can no longer align my­self with a par­ty that has aban­doned its prin­ci­ples, re­wards medi­oc­rity, shields those ac­cused of wrong­do­ing, and pun­ish­es in­tegri­ty. I refuse to sub­mit my­self to a screen­ing com­mit­tee that in­cludes in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly charged with wrong­do­ing, em­broiled in court cas­es in­volv­ing mis­man­age­ment of pub­lic funds at the EM­BD, al­leged­ly linked to gang ac­tiv­i­ty and even one in­di­vid­ual who has se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing to an­swer,” Rag­bir said in a state­ment.

Rag­bir added that he could no longer serve un­der “a lead­er­ship that pri­ori­tis­es per­son­al loy­al­ty over pub­lic ser­vice, a lead­er­ship that sti­fles dis­sent, re­jects ac­count­abil­i­ty, and has trans­formed UNC from a po­lit­i­cal par­ty in­to a per­son­al­i­ty cult de­vot­ed en­tire­ly to the wor­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Rag­bir was part of Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate which lost to Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate in the par­ty’s June 2024 ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

Paray’s team was es­tranged from UNC’s hi­er­ar­chy and Rag­bir was fur­ther os­tracised af­ter he sub­se­quent­ly vot­ed with the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment on the Whistle­blow­er bill. He was crit­i­cised by UNC of­fi­cials and re­moved from UNC groups.

Ex­plain­ing what he has ex­pe­ri­enced in re­cent months, he said, “When I vot­ed for the Whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect pub­lic funds—par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in in­sti­tu­tions like San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion—I was met with hos­til­i­ty, alien­ation, and si­lence. This leg­is­la­tion was about ac­count­abil­i­ty, yet, ac­count­abil­i­ty isn’t wel­come in Kam­la’s UNC.

“Un­der her lead­er­ship, UNC’s be­come a hol­low shell—dri­ven by di­vi­sive rhetoric, emp­ty the­atrics, and re­lent­less in­ter­nal purges. This is no longer the par­ty found­ed by Bas­deo Pan­day. Kam­la’s UNC doesn’t tol­er­ate in­de­pen­dent thought. Dis­sent is met with smears, back­room sab­o­tage, and ex­pul­sion. In­stead of build­ing a team based on com­pe­tence, she’s sur­round­ed her­self with syco­phants—yes-men and women whose on­ly qual­i­fi­ca­tion is slav­ish de­vo­tion.”

De­spite his sit­u­a­tion, Rag­bir still filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers last April to con­test Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la, which he won in 2020. By last Sep­tem­ber, how­ev­er, he said he wouldn’t at­tend screen­ing and knew he wouldn’t be se­lect­ed.

Tar­get­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship fur­ther yes­ter­day, he added, “Kam­la has al­lowed par­ty mes­sag­ing to be shaped by con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries, at­tacked a for­mer US pres­i­dent in one of her many un­hinged press re­leas­es, and pro­mot­ed racial dog whistling like the term ‘Oreo.’ She’s fur­ther de­grad­ed UNC by em­brac­ing Philip Ed­ward Alexan­der.

“These aren’t the ac­tions of a se­ri­ous leader—they’re the des­per­ate tac­tics of some­one cling­ing to pow­er at all costs. Mean­while, ded­i­cat­ed, com­pe­tent mem­bers like Paray, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly—among UNC’s best and bright­est—are side­lined, while those ac­cused of cor­rup­tion, mis­man­age­ment, and even links to crim­i­nal el­e­ments re­main un­touched.

“The hypocrisy is stag­ger­ing. How can UNC de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty from the PNM while re­fus­ing to prac­tise it in­ter­nal­ly? Kam­la led the UNC to two con­sec­u­tive elec­tion de­feats—each time re­fus­ing to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Un­der her lead­er­ship, UNC has of­fered no re­al so­lu­tions to crime, no vi­sion for eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery, and no strat­e­gy to re­build pub­lic trust. In­stead, it’s be­come a per­ma­nent op­po­si­tion, con­sumed by in­fight­ing rather than gov­er­nance.”

He said un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar the UNC “re­mains di­rec­tion­less, di­vid­ed, and in­ca­pable of win­ning ... a rud­der­less or­gan­i­sa­tion, hi­jacked by a leader who re­fus­es to step aside de­spite re­peat­ed fail­ure ... I’ll con­tin­ue fight­ing for equal­i­ty and jus­tice, but I can­not do so un­der a UNC lead­er­ship that’s lost its moral com­pass and is more in­ter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing the cor­rupt than serv­ing peo­ple.”

Rag­bir didn’t re­ply to queries on whether he’ll re­sign from UNC and sup­port an­oth­er par­ty, whether PNM or oth­er­wise, or con­test Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la as an in­de­pen­dent.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Paray said he re­spect­ed Rag­bir’s views but would not fol­low his lead.

“I re­spect his view and con­sid­ered po­si­tions. I re­main ready and pre­pared for screen­ing when called,” Paray said.

Asked if he thinks this will neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the UNC in the next gen­er­al elec­tion, he replied, “I think the coun­try has al­ready made up its mind as to the fu­ture, they anx­ious­ly await the date.”

Asked if he thinks the UNC can win the seat with­out Rag­bir, Paray said, “Any­thing is pos­si­ble.”

How­ev­er, UNC par­ty or­gan­is­er Bar­ry Padarath slammed Rag­bir in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse.

“Good rid­dance, Rai! He should have been gone a long time ago,” Padarath said.

“He would nev­er have seen the in­side of the Par­lia­ment with­out Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. And when the fox can’t get the grapes, he’s say­ing it’s sour!”

“He should be screen­ing for the PNM, not UNC. In the last five years, he’s the on­ly UNC MP to vote with the PNM. UNC sup­port­ers will nev­er for­get that be­tray­al! He’s tak­ing the cow­ard’s way out.”

The PNM will com­plete its screen­ing process next week with Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la among the out­stand­ing ar­eas.