Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed sug­ges­tions that her re­cent In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage sig­nalled an im­pend­ing con­test for the lead­er­ship of her par­ty, de­scrib­ing that in­ter­pre­ta­tion as in­cor­rect.

Ques­tions arose fol­low­ing a pas­sage in her mes­sage to UNC sup­port­ers, in which she stat­ed: “This is why the lead­er­ship of our par­ty must nev­er fall in­to the hands of weak men and women; fi­nesse and diplo­ma­cy must be backed up with stee­li­ness and sav­agery when re­quired to de­fend the UNC mem­ber­ship. A UNC leader must nev­er al­low our par­ty to be hi­jacked by the lo­cal drug mafia and the fake eat-a-food elite as hap­pened to the PNM.”

Asked yes­ter­day whether her com­ments sug­gest­ed the po­si­tion of po­lit­i­cal leader could be con­test­ed at the next par­ty elec­tions, and whether she in­tend­ed to seek re-elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not di­rect­ly ad­dress her fu­ture plans.

In­stead, she said: “Wrong in­ter­pre­ta­tion. Sim­ply an In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to the UNC fam­i­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that the next UNC lead­er­ship elec­tion is due in 2028. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­tained the post un­op­posed in 2025.

In the mes­sage, she al­so warned that a UNC leader should nev­er al­low the par­ty to be “hi­jacked by the lo­cal drug mafia and the fake eat-a-food elite.”

Asked yes­ter­day what qual­i­ties she be­lieved the next gen­er­a­tion of UNC lead­ers should pos­sess, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said lead­er­ship re­quired a bal­ance of con­trast­ing traits.

“You have to bal­ance the beau­ty and the beast in your­self to lead the UNC,” she said.

She cit­ed love, men­tal strength, emo­tion­al in­tel­li­gence, aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions, pa­tience, “an in­ner ruth­less­ness and sav­agery,” calm­ness, fear­less­ness and loy­al friend­ships as im­por­tant lead­er­ship qual­i­ties.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so said she was un­aware of any cur­rent threat by out­side in­ter­ests to take con­trol of her par­ty.

“No, there is no threat like that at all. How­ev­er, you don’t wait for it to rear its head,” she said.

“Look at what hap­pened to the PNM be­cause their sup­port­ers ig­nored the warn­ing signs of the takeover by the lo­cal drug mafia and fake elite.”

On the is­sue of suc­ces­sion plan­ning, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the choice of leader ul­ti­mate­ly rests with par­ty mem­bers.

“Pow­er is some­thing you take. If some­one has to give you pow­er then you have no pow­er at all,” she said.

“The mem­ber­ship of the par­ty will de­cide who leads. That is not my de­ci­sion to make.”

Ram­bachan:

PM con­sol­i­dat­ing her po­si­tion

How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments have prompt­ed dif­fer­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tions among cur­rent and for­mer UNC mem­bers.

Life­time UNC mem­ber and for­mer deputy leader Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said he does not be­lieve Per­sad-Bisses­sar will vol­un­tar­i­ly give up lead­er­ship while she re­mains ca­pa­ble of lead­ing the par­ty.

“Mrs Bisses­sar will not re­lin­quish lead­er­ship of the par­ty while she is alive and ca­pa­ble of man­ag­ing the af­fairs of the par­ty,” Ram­bachan said.

“Vol­un­tar­i­ly giv­ing up lead­er­ship is not an es­tab­lished prin­ci­ple of our pol­i­tics. In our po­lit­i­cal cul­ture, lead­ers ei­ther get re­moved by vot­ers or die in of­fice.”

Ram­bachan sug­gest­ed the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments were aimed at strength­en­ing her po­si­tion ahead of the next lead­er­ship elec­tion.

“With a lead­er­ship elec­tion on the hori­zon, she is con­sol­i­dat­ing her po­si­tion by be­gin­ning to cre­ate an un­der­ground con­ver­sa­tion as to who ought not to be trust­ed or trust­ed,” he said.

“This is noth­ing new in the par­ty. In fact, I doubt any­one will put their names for­ward to con­test the lead­er­ship.”

He ar­gued the mes­sage had shift­ed the at­ten­tion of UNC sup­port­ers away from na­tion­al is­sues and to­wards what he de­scribed as an “in­vis­i­ble tar­get.”

“At the right time the new leader of the UNC will emerge from the peo­ple,” Ram­bachan added.

“Mrs Bisses­sar will not en­dorse a leader. At least in this re­gard she is a de­mo­c­rat.”

Bharath warns of fac­tion­al­ism

For­mer Cab­i­net min­is­ter and life­time UNC mem­ber Vas­ant Bharath said the more press­ing is­sue was whether the par­ty’s in­sti­tu­tions were strong enough to man­age a fu­ture lead­er­ship tran­si­tion.

“Lead­er­ship tran­si­tions in po­lit­i­cal par­ties are rarely straight­for­ward, par­tic­u­lar­ly when the par­ty is in Gov­ern­ment and there is a sit­ting Prime Min­is­ter,” Bharath said.

“The im­por­tant is­sue is not whether there will be com­pe­ti­tion. The re­al ques­tion is whether the UNC has suf­fi­cient­ly strong in­ter­nal in­sti­tu­tions to man­age that com­pe­ti­tion with­out al­low­ing it to be­come per­son­al or de­struc­tive.”

Bharath said he did not be­lieve the par­ty cur­rent­ly had those safe­guards, ar­gu­ing par­ty in­sti­tu­tions had weak­ened and that can­di­dates were of­ten judged by their loy­al­ty to the leader rather than the par­ty’s prin­ci­ples.

He al­so re­ject­ed the no­tion that po­lit­i­cal strength should be equat­ed with “sav­agery.”

“I com­plete­ly re­ject the sug­ges­tion that the al­ter­na­tive to be­ing a ‘weak’ leader is be­ing sav­age. Strength in po­lit­i­cal lead­er­ship should not be con­fused with ag­gres­sion,” he said.

“For me, stee­li­ness means hav­ing prin­ci­ples and stand­ing by them. It doesn’t mean sav­agery.”

Bharath added that the lan­guage used by Per­sad-Bisses­sar was strong enough to in­vite spec­u­la­tion about whether she per­ceived threats to her lead­er­ship. How­ev­er, he said it would be pre­ma­ture to iden­ti­fy any in­tend­ed tar­gets un­less the Prime Min­is­ter clar­i­fied her re­marks.

Paray re­jects lead­er­ship chal­lenge talk

For­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray al­so re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage sig­nalled an im­mi­nent lead­er­ship con­test.

“I think the ques­tions are based on a premise that sim­ply does not ex­ist,” Paray said.

“Noth­ing in the Prime Min­is­ter’s In­de­pen­dence mes­sage an­nounced, sug­gest­ed or im­plied that the lead­er­ship of the UNC is ‘up for grabs.’”

Paray said any fu­ture suc­ces­sor should be cho­sen based on com­pe­tence, in­tegri­ty, courage, sound judge­ment and the abil­i­ty to unite peo­ple.

While he said he had seen no ev­i­dence that crim­i­nal in­ter­ests, fi­nanciers or oth­er groups were at­tempt­ing to take con­trol of the par­ty, he did not rule out the pos­si­bil­i­ty of one day seek­ing the lead­er­ship him­self.

“Any­thing is pos­si­ble,” he said.