Jan­nelle Bernard

& Sascha Wil­son

Both Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray and Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne in­tend to con­test a post in the UNC’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions on June 15.

In fact, Paray re­vealed he in­tends to field a slate to con­test posts in the in­ter­nal par­ty polls.

Yes­ter­day, Paray said af­ter months of wran­gling he was re­lieved that the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­cid­ed on the in­ter­nal elec­tion date. On Fri­day the par­ty an­nounced that June 15  would be polling day.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Paray—who was one of the first in the UNC to make sev­er­al pub­lic calls for the par­ty to hold ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions—said that while he hoped that it could have been called ear­li­er he is hap­py that the date has fi­nal­ly been an­nounced. But he said he was not tak­ing any cred­it for what he said ap­peared to be an im­promp­tu de­ci­sion.

The Ma­yaro MP said he will be pre­sent­ing a slate for the ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

“Ab­solute­ly as a mat­ter of fact,  I plan in terms of lead­ing a team that will go in­to the con­test at the end of the month, with­in the thir­ty days. So I have every in­ten­tion to do that,” he said.

He added that the elec­tion was not called be­cause of him, but be­cause of the wider mem­ber­ship. He be­lieves the “sud­den” an­nounce­ment of the date very close to when it is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due would not harm any chal­lengers but can back­fire on the po­lit­i­cal leader.

“His­tor­i­cal­ly when a po­lit­i­cal leader pulls a date out of their back pock­et they have not been very suc­cess­ful. At the end of the day I want to be able to say that the par­ty has thought it out,” Paray said.

While he did not say if the in­ter­nal elec­tions tak­ing place just days be­fore the by-elec­tions for elec­toral dis­tricts of Lengua/In­di­an Walk and Quinam/Morne Di­a­blo will have any ef­fect on the polls, Paray said they will serve as a cat­a­lyst for the par­ty’s sup­port­ers to get in elec­tion mode, in par­tic­u­lar the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tions.

An­oth­er one of the so-called “dis­si­dents” in the UNC, Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, al­so in­di­cat­ed her in­ten­tions of con­test­ing a post in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, Haynes-Al­leyne stopped short of say­ing what post it would be and giv­ing any fur­ther de­tails on the move.

“I would be pre­pared to say once the pa­per­work has been com­plet­ed and dropped off, which I am hop­ing  can be done in short or­der,” she said.

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who al­so pub­licly ex­pressed his dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the par­ty’s lead­er­ship, said he has not yet de­cid­ed if he would be throw­ing his hat in the ring.  

“I am giv­ing ac­tive con­sid­er­a­tion to it as I am hold­ing dis­cus­sions with­in my con­stituen­cy,” Ram­bal­ly ex­plained.

Mean­while, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal who is one of the deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers of the UNC was al­so un­de­cid­ed as he in­di­cat­ed that he still has to con­sult with his fam­i­ly, con­stituents and swa­mi.

When con­tact­ed Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo, the par­ty’s chair­man, St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen, the par­ty’s vice chair­man and Cou­va North MP Ravi Rati­ram, who holds the po­si­tion of par­ty or­gan­is­er, in­di­cat­ed that they would re­veal their de­ci­sion in due course.