DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Bas­deo Pan­day’s death has sent rip­ples across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide, with cur­rent and for­mer mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) ex­press­ing dis­be­lief at his pas­ing.

Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, a mem­ber of the par­ty Pan­day found­ed, said he could not be­lieve the 90-year-old, fond­ly known as ‘Sil­ver Fox’, had died

“It is shock­ing. I think the earth has shak­en. He was a larg­er-than-life fig­ure so one nev­er thought that he could ac­tu­al­ly die,” Dr Mooni­lal said.

He said Pan­day was known for his ac­tivism. He had served as an ad­vi­sor to trade unions and was pres­i­dent of the of the All Trinidad Sug­ar and Gen­er­al Work­ers’ Trade Union (ATS&GW­TU) from 1973 un­til he was ap­point­ed prime min­is­ter.

“He leaves an enor­mous lega­cy in Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Caribbean as a whole and this is a sig­nif­i­cant sig­nal mo­ment in the his­to­ry of Trinidad and To­ba­go giv­en his strug­gle for gen­er­a­tions and decades,” he said.

“He was a per­son­al men­tor, friend, boss of mine for many years and it is still ex­treme­ly shock­ing and sad. Even when some­one like this is ail­ing, you still have this feel­ing that they can’t leave. In a strange way, Mr Pan­day will not die. He will live for­ev­er.”

For­mer Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er, who joined the UNC when Pan­day was po­lit­i­cal leader, al­so ex­pressed shock at the for­mer PM’s death.

“Be­lieve you me, I was shocked to my wits end be­cause though I know he had a heart prob­lem, I nev­er looked at Pan­day as some­body who would die now. He was the great­est Prime Min­is­ter this coun­try has ever had and worst yet, in fact bet­ter yet, he was the first In­di­an Prime Min­is­ter, and he helped this coun­try.

“He gov­erned this coun­try in a way that no one felt dis­crim­i­nat­ed against. I re­called that he nev­er raised tax­es,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er al­so com­ment­ed on Pan­day’s daugh­ter’s cri­tique of his treat­ment pri­or to his death.

Mick­ela Pan­day praised her dad’s strength in a Face­book post on De­cem­ber 27, not­ing that he had faced “base­less, trumped up charges of al­leged cor­rup­tion, aid­ed and abet­ted by a bi­ased me­dia with an un­holy agen­da.” She al­so con­demned those who con­spired to plot and steal the par­ty he formed and worked hard to build.

“I think Mick­ela is right the way she feels be­cause I don’t think Pan­day was treat­ed just­ly, right­ly or giv­en the re­spect he de­serves,” he said.

“They wouldn’t even name the air­port af­ter him, far less, so I think she’s quite cor­rect and I would say now that he’s dead, you’d hear all kinds of prais­es about him, all kinds of things that he should be and shouldn’t be and this is what pains me some­times on these oc­ca­sions.”

Ahead of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions in 2010, Warn­er was among those who chal­lenged Pan­day’s lead­er­ship of the UNC. As MP for Ch­agua­nas West, Warn­er, who was vy­ing for the par­ty’s chair­man­ship, sug­gest­ed that Pan­day want­ed to re­tain con­trol of the UNC to keep him­self out of the courts in re­la­tion to the Pi­ar­co Air­port cor­rup­tion scan­dal.

Nev­er­the­less, he of­fered con­do­lences to the Pan­days and asked to be in­formed of the fu­ner­al date as soon as pos­si­ble.

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, how­ev­er, said he’s pre­pared for fake is­suance of con­do­lences.

“One must cau­tion against the croc­o­dile tears of the cur­rent lead­er­ship of the UNC, who had no space for the very founder of the par­ty on whose back they rode in­to of­fice and con­tin­ue to milk at every op­por­tu­ni­ty. Pan­day was thrown out of the Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, aid­ed and abet­ted by the trade union he once led along with op­er­a­tives of the po­lit­i­cal par­ty whom he gave of­fice,” he said.

Ma­haraj added that Pan­day’s death marks the end of an era in the pol­i­tics of T&T, par­tic­u­lar­ly the end of pol­i­tics in the In­do-Trinida­di­an com­mu­ni­ty, Op­po­si­tion pol­i­tics, and labour pol­i­tics.

“Pan­day can per­haps be best de­scribed as a re­nais­sance politi­cian in the Trinidad con­text. Beloved by the com­mon man, per­haps more so af­ter when he was dri­ven out of of­fice by the same com­mon man, Pan­day brought an in­tel­lec­tu­al depth and po­lit­i­cal phi­los­o­phy to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress which he found­ed af­ter lead­ing the Unit­ed La­bor Front,” he not­ed.

He added: “Pan­day, like all politi­cians, had hu­man fail­ures, in­clud­ing the in­abil­i­ty to man­age the con­flicts with UNC mem­bers Ramesh, Ralph, and Sud­ma, which re­sult­ed in the down­fall of the Pan­day ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“The hyp­o­crit­i­cal tears of the UNC lead­er­ship will be forth­com­ing short­ly, as they will at­tempt to pros­ti­tute the pass­ing of Pan­day for po­lit­i­cal points amongst Pan­day sup­port­ers. Those Pan­dayites will soon be told of how great Pan­day was by the lead­er­ship of the UNC, who had no time or space for Pan­day, his broth­er or daugh­ter in the very par­ty he found­ed.”