Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

If there are trai­tors aboard the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), they will face the same fate as Ra­van dur­ing this sea­son, said UNC MP Bar­ry Padarath yes­ter­day, as he ex­pressed his sup­port for par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

This fol­lows claims on Ian Al­leyne’s Mon­day show “warn­ing” Per­sad-Bisses­sar of a “con­spir­a­cy” by some Op­po­si­tion mem­bers to “hi­jack” the UNC. It was claimed a “cer­tain man is the ring­leader” and has been round­ing up MPs to get sig­na­tures to take to the Pres­i­dent to re­move Per­sad-Bisses­sar (as Op­po­si­tion leader) and UNC sen­a­tors are “in­volved”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not com­ment on the claims, nor did UNC deputy lead­ers Roodal Mooni­lal or David Lee. UNC Deputy Leader Jear­lean John mean­while said she “didn’t know about these things”.

Some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans were un­avail­able, did not re­ply to Guardian Me­dia queries, or said off the record they were loy­al to the leader.

How­ev­er, Padarath said, “I’m in full sup­port of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her lead­er­ship. Thou­sands of UNC mem­bers de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed her and I’m not a part of any con­spir­a­cy to un­der­mine her or the par­ty. She con­tin­ues to have the con­fi­dence of my­self and my con­stituents to lead the par­ty suc­cess­ful­ly in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

“If there are those who as­pire to lead­er­ship but take the cow­ard’s route of un­der­min­ing the par­ty for per­son­al and self­ish rea­sons, the mem­ber­ship will deal with those pa­thet­ic cow­ards in due course. If there are trai­tors aboard, they too will face the same fate as Ra­van dur­ing this sea­son. There are those of us who are known fight­ers against PNM op­pres­sion in this par­ty along­side Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar. We won’t be hi­jacked by any PNM in­fil­tra­tors or John­ny-come-late­ly.”

MP Rus­ton Paray said, “There’s one leader of the par­ty with a func­tion­ing na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive. The UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for (in­ter­nal) elec­tions when it’s due. The work of all MPs and coun­cil­lors is to re­move the PNM. I’m fo­cused on mat­ters of wa­ter, in­fra­struc­ture and a col­laps­ing busi­ness sec­tor in Ma­yaro.”

Sen­a­tor Damien Ly­der said, “These (claims aired) are an ab­solute dis­trac­tion once more from se­ri­ous is­sues plagu­ing T&T un­der PNM gov­er­nance. Every po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty will have is­sues in­ter­nal­ly, but Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar was de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed as UNC’s leader and has unan­i­mous sup­port in this re­gard. She has my full sup­port.”

He added, “I’m not con­cerned by the ole talk but by PNM’s poor gov­er­nance–the scourge of crime de­stroy­ing our coun­try, the in­creas­ing pover­ty lev­el, and the wors­en­ing of the econ­o­my and ero­sion of forex sup­ply.”

MP Rishad Seecher­an said, “I’m com­mit­ted to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, SC, as UNC’s leader.”

Sen­a­tor David Nakhid said, “We have one leader du­ly elect­ed by a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process ... Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the bal­ance that holds this par­ty to­geth­er and makes us at­trac­tive na­tion­al­ly. All mis­chief mak­ers and PNM op­er­a­tives recog­nise this and that is why they have to re­sort to sur­rep­ti­tious means to dis­rupt an up­ward UNC flow un­der the po­lit­i­cal leader. And as my Aunt Twig­gy would say—And is that!”

Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al said, “I’m pi­lot­ing the mo­tion in the Sen­ate to an­nul the or­der seek­ing to ex­empt fi­nan­cial ser­vices for cen­tral and pub­lic bod­ies–that’s re­al news.”

UNC Sen­a­tor Wade Mark did not re­spond.

MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said he had no clue about the claims, nor did MP Rod­ney Charles.

Mean­while, for­mer UNC MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al felt “red her­rings” from se­nior par­ty mem­bers could be from Per­sad-Bisss­esar her­self seek­ing to as­cer­tain who wants to chal­lenge her in UNC’s 2024 in­ter­nals.

“But those who wish to chal­lenge her will on­ly show their hand when the elec­tions are called,” she said.