When the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion bell rings, Tabaquite MP Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan will not be an op­po­nent on the po­lit­i­cal stage.

Ram­bachan bowed out re­cent­ly af­ter spend­ing 52 years of his life in pol­i­tics.

Ram­bachan, 70, will not seek re-elec­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), which he served and helped to build, but will be a men­tor to the youth of the par­ty un­der the lead­er­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

He made the an­nounce­ment two weeks ago at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing host­ed by the UNC in Gas­par­il­lo.

Dur­ing his five decades in pol­i­tics, Ram­bachan wore many hats—from am­bas­sador to Brazil, MP, Ch­agua­nas may­or, Sen­ate mi­nor­i­ty leader, and deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC.

Ram­bachan was al­so as­signed three min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios dur­ing his 2010 to 2015 term un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar—For­eign Af­fairs, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment, and Works and In­fra­struc­ture.

In 2014, he al­so act­ed as prime min­is­ter.

On Mon­day, the Sun­day Guardian sat down with Ram­bachan at his con­stituen­cy of­fice in Gas­par­il­lo to talk about his po­lit­i­cal life, chal­lenges, the UNC's mis­steps, and the way for­ward.

Has­sanali: How would you de­scribe your 52 years in pol­i­tics?

Ram­bachan: It has been an ex­cit­ing and sat­is­fy­ing 52 years. I al­so think that with­out pow­er one is not able to help peo­ple in a very con­struc­tive way. I used pow­er al­ways for the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple. To me, that is very sat­is­fy­ing. I al­so know what it is not to be in of­fice and not to have pow­er. I would say those were some ter­ri­fy­ing mo­ments when peo­ple de­pend­ed on you but you re­al­ly could not de­liv­er to them. The last four years the con­stituen­cy of Tabaquite has been like that, where peo­ple ex­pect­ed the same lev­el of per­for­mance and de­liv­ery be­tween 2010 and 2015. The re­sponse of the Gov­ern­ment has not been forth­com­ing.

What has been your most chal­leng­ing task as a politi­cian?

I don't see any­thing as a chal­lenge but an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn. If you ap­proach life with an at­ti­tude of learn­ing you will not be dis­ap­point­ed. When I lost the elec­tion in 1981 and 1990 I was not dis­ap­point­ed. If you see every­thing as a chal­lenge you would be­come a com­plainant in life.

What was your low­est mo­ment in pol­i­tics?

When I was re­moved as Ch­agua­nas May­or in which Jack Warn­er and Gan­ga Singh had ma­jor roles to play. Be­lieve it or not, that last­ed two or three days and I was over that. I moved on. I went back to my con­sul­tan­cy and singing of Ra­mayan.

Were you part of a ca­bal in the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment?

Every prime min­is­ter, every po­lit­i­cal leader will have a group of ad­vis­ers, and Kam­la had a group of ad­vis­ers. But this wasn't a ca­bal. She would have her close ad­vis­ers. I would tell you some­thing, she had an ex­pand­ed group al­so. Kam­la is one per­son who I have worked with who would sit at a ta­ble and ask every­body their opin­ion be­fore she came to a con­clu­sion or de­ci­sion and you may not have agreed with it. Some­times it led her to pro­cras­ti­nate. In the process of pro­cras­ti­na­tion, I think the speed at which the de­ci­sion should have been made may not have been made. I have had dif­fer­ences in her ap­proach­es and strate­gies.

You men­tioned that the UNC needs to be re­vamped, do you think this should have been done be­fore the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion?

The UNC start­ed to re­brand the mo­ment it lost the elec­tions. Re­brand­ing is a con­tin­u­ous process be­cause it is a re­sponse to change.

With re­brand­ing, do you think the UNC could win the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion?

We are fast ap­proach­ing the case where we must have some kind of uni­ty in the coun­try. It has to be uni­ty that will be sus­tain­able. I per­son­al­ly don't be­lieve that mem­bers of trade unions nec­es­sar­i­ly vote in block. I think the UNC can win in the next elec­tion. I think Per­sad-Bisses­sar has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to bring this great el­e­ment to­geth­er.

What was the UNC's biggest mis­take lead­ing up to the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion?

I think we al­lowed the pop­u­la­tion to be­lieve lies. A lot of things were said about the UNC that was not true. The nar­ra­tive that was cre­at­ed by the PNM and to some ex­tent the labour move­ment about the UNC gained tremen­dous ground and took over from the per­for­mance of the par­ty. There is no doubt in my mind we were a per­form­ing par­ty. The PNM is in­ter­est­ed in win­ning elec­tions but they are poor in gov­er­nance. You can say the op­po­site for the UNC. We are very good at gov­er­nance, but we al­so need to know how to win elec­tions and to stay in pow­er.

What was the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship ma­jor faux pas dur­ing their tenure?

I think we suf­fered at times from the num­ber of peo­ple who had to be re­moved from gov­ern­ment. That was some­thing that caused us some harm. I think we al­so need­ed to sell our­selves a lit­tle more to the pop­u­la­tion. What is in­ter­est­ing, peo­ple are be­gin­ning to see and com­pare our per­for­mance.

Do you think Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the best per­son to lead the UNC?

I be­lieve she has the ex­pe­ri­ence as a prime min­is­ter. Sec­ond­ly, she is an in­tel­li­gent per­son who I be­lieve in my heart has learnt from her ex­pe­ri­ences. I don't think she will make the same mis­takes. I think she is much tougher than she was in 2010 to 2015. This is why she has the courage to re­vamp the UNC even if that means that peo­ple are go­ing to get hurt in the process or some peo­ple are not go­ing to get their seats. I think she still has cur­ren­cy in terms of be­ing a leader. Peo­ple might ar­gue that she lost a num­ber of elec­tions and that is al­so true. I think peo­ple are be­gin­ning to com­pare two lead­ers at this mo­ment.

Do you think the old­er heads in the par­ty should step aside and make room for new blood?

I don't want to speak for them. I can on­ly speak for my­self. I re­al­ly want­ed to give Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the space to cre­ate the change. I want­ed to set the ex­am­ple. I think I have done that. I think, though, that I have awak­en a cer­tain con­scious­ness in the par­ty and peo­ple. You must have a mix of ex­pe­ri­ence and fresh ideas.

Do you think the PNM will come af­ter you for the Point Fortin to San Fer­nan­do High­way, see­ing that they have asked for a com­mis­sion of en­quiry in­to the project?

Why you say come af­ter me? Every­thing is there in pa­per. Every­thing is there at Nid­co and so on. I have no prob­lems with them in­ves­ti­gat­ing the high­way or any­thing like that. They spoke about the val­u­a­tions, Nid­co was in charge of the val­u­a­tions. They were done by pri­vate treaty, a sys­tem that start­ed un­der the PNM. Those ac­qui­si­tions of prop­er­ties start­ed way be­fore we took over the process of gov­ern­ment. You don't be­gin to ac­quire prop­er­ties when you start to build a high­way. You be­gin to ac­quire prop­er­ties way back.

So are you singing the mantra of Per­sad-Bisses­sar that your hands are clean and heart is pure in the high­way project?

Yes, I did what I had to do. I know it was done above board.