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Saturday, May 17, 2025

Rambally says he will not rejoin UNC

by

Radhica De Silva
17 days ago
20250429
Outgoing Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally addresses PNM supporters at the party's final rally yesterday.

Outgoing Chaguanas West MP Dinesh Rambally addresses PNM supporters at the party's final rally yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

For­mer dis­si­dent UNC MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly says he has no in­ten­tion of re­join­ing the UNC, even as he con­grat­u­lat­ed in­com­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the par­ty on their re­turn to gov­ern­ment.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Ram­bal­ly said, “I want to say con­grat­u­la­tions to the UNC, led by Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. I have no is­sue in plac­ing that on the pub­lic record.”

He ex­plained that his res­ig­na­tion stemmed from a mis­align­ment with the par­ty.

“I could not align with the par­ty. That is why I re­signed. Hav­ing re­signed, I want­ed to sup­port the coun­try. But I have no in­ten­tion of re­join­ing the UNC.”

Asked whether he would now join the PNM, which he sup­port­ed dur­ing the cam­paign, Ram­bal­ly said, “I’m not a part of it yet. I on­ly sup­port­ed the PNM in the elec­tion. It is ear­ly days yet. I just sim­ply re­moved my­self from the UNC.”

He said he would now fo­cus on his le­gal prac­tice and na­tion­al ser­vice wher­ev­er pos­si­ble.

“I just want to see that for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try, we have democ­ra­cy and peo­ple work to­wards bet­ter­ing so­ci­ety—whether it’s the UNC or the PNM.”

Mean­while, for­mer UNC MP for Tabaquite Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, who aligned with the PNM a day be­fore the elec­tion, said the coun­try had demon­strat­ed ma­tu­ri­ty in ex­e­cut­ing an­oth­er free and fair elec­tion.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go has suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed an­oth­er free and fair elec­tion, and as a na­tion, we must be proud of that fact,” she said. “I con­grat­u­late Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team on the vic­to­ry. The UNC has been giv­en a man­date to gov­ern and holds the great ex­pec­ta­tions of our peo­ple.”

She added, “To­day is a new day for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Let us con­tin­ue to work for a bet­ter coun­try.”

For­mer Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, who had un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tion, al­so ex­tend­ed con­grat­u­la­tions to her and to Nicholas Mor­ris, who re­placed him as MP.

“Her re­turn to gov­ern­ment re­flects the will of the peo­ple and sig­nals a re­newed man­date for bet­ter gov­er­nance, na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty, and a fo­cus on de­liv­er­ing re­sults.”

He de­scribed Mor­ris’s new role as a se­ri­ous one. “The con­stituen­cy faces se­ri­ous, long-stand­ing is­sues—from de­te­ri­o­rat­ing roads, coastal ero­sion, in­ad­e­quate wa­ter ser­vices, to lim­it­ed ac­cess to state agen­cies, job­less­ness, and ris­ing crime.”

Paray said he re­mained com­mit­ted to na­tion­al ser­vice. “As I step away from ac­tive par­lia­men­tary rep­re­sen­ta­tion, I re­main com­mit­ted to na­tion­al ser­vice in what­ev­er ca­pac­i­ty I can con­tribute.”

Pres­i­dent of the South Oropouche River­ine Flood Ac­tion Group, Ed­ward Mood­ie—who had aligned with Paray’s slate—told Guardian Me­dia that the new gov­ern­ment must ur­gent­ly ad­dress long-stand­ing flood­ing prob­lems in the Oropouche Basin.

“We have agreed on some prin­ci­ples. I got con­fir­ma­tion this morn­ing that re­in­force­ment of one of the em­bank­ments will be pri­ori­tised.”

Mood­ie said en­gi­neer­ing fail­ures and poor man­age­ment were to blame for re­peat­ed flood­ing in the re­gion.

“Those who were in­volved in re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing some of the river­banks nev­er had re­la­tion­ships with the peo­ple. They didn’t un­der­stand the is­sues.”

He said dis­cus­sions were held with UNC MPs, in­clud­ing Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, and called for uni­ty among for­mer UNC mem­bers.

“I have made it clear to the dif­fer­ent MPs, maybe in­stead of all the anger that con­tin­ued on Face­book, maybe we should have reached out to them. Now that the elec­tion is over, let us stop the pet­ti­ness and get back to­geth­er,” he said.

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