Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, who is lead­ing the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots (UP) slate in the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions lat­er this month, con­tin­ues to in­sist his team will not be drawn in­to po­lit­i­cal mud­sling­ing.

At a cot­tage meet­ing in Bar­rack­pore on Wednes­day, Paray said he re­mains a de­vot­ed mem­ber of the UNC but not­ed the par­ty needs change.

“The par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion has a mech­a­nism to re­fresh and the mech­a­nism is the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion be­cause in that way, you, the mem­bers of the par­ty, tell the lead­er­ship, ‘I like what you do­ing and re­main,’ or ‘I don’t like what you all do­ing and give some­one else a chance.’ That is your con­sti­tu­tion­al right and no­body should de­prive you of that.”

De­fend­ing his de­ci­sion to ag­i­tate for new faces in the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, Paray said he had done noth­ing wrong and de­clared he would not be bait­ed in­to a smear cam­paign.

His slate is up against the Star slate led by po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has been crit­i­cal of Paray and his team.

“Noth­ing that I have said, or that any­body from this side has said over the last two months, has in­sult­ed or hurt any­one, but you see the method by which the oth­er side op­er­ates,” he said.

“It was nev­er my in­ten­tion to bring the par­ty in­to any prob­lem or dis­re­pute. That is why I don’t re­spond to the fool­ish­ness be­cause it is not my in­ten­tion to drag the par­ty down.”

Paray said an in­sti­tu­tion can­not be built around one per­son, with the ex­pec­ta­tion that it will be able to last in the po­lit­i­cal gayelle.

“You call that a cult and we have no place for cultism in our par­ty and cultism can­not win an elec­tion,” he said, even as he steered clear of di­rect­ing his com­ments specif­i­cal­ly at any mem­ber of the op­pos­ing slate.

The Ma­yaro MP, who said change is need­ed ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion, added, “I am fed-up of the UNC los­ing elec­tions. We lost in 2013, we lost a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, we lost a gen­er­al elec­tion in 2015. We talk about a tie some­where, we lost a gen­er­al elec­tion in 2020, we come and tie again the oth­er day, and some­how we win.

“I am sure all of you like me are fed-up of los­ing. We can­not win if we don’t make changes to the way we op­er­ate as a par­ty.”