Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Send­ing a stern warn­ing to those who want to up­hold the par­ty’s sta­tus quo, mem­bers of the new­ly re­vealed Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate told UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex) in­cum­bents to ei­ther ac­cept the winds of change or face the im­pend­ing storm.

At a packed Sig­na­ture Hall on Sat­ur­day evening, the Rush­ton Paray-led slate shared their vi­sion and plan for the par­ty they said has be­come too com­fort­able in op­po­si­tion.

Lar­ry Lal­la, a can­di­date for chair­man, said the par­ty is cur­rent­ly “the weak­est op­po­si­tion in this coun­try’s his­to­ry.” Not­ing that their ri­vals, the Star Slate, had a slo­gan boast­ing that they are “UNC and proud,” he asked what they had to be proud about giv­en the state of the coun­try and the par­ty’s per­for­mance in the last two gen­er­al elec­tions.

“You have to con­clude that they on that Star team must be mad, they must be mad! It is all ma­m­aguy and noth­ing more than false pride they are us­ing to mask the ab­ject fail­ure that has faced this par­ty in the last nine years,” Lal­la said.

He was al­so crit­i­cal of the par­ty’s habit of re­plac­ing gen­uine tal­ent with peren­ni­al loy­al­ists.

“It ex­plains why peo­ple with great minds like Kevin Ram­nar­ine, Bhoe Tewarie, the late Fazal Karim, Fuad Khan and Vas­ant Bharath were and have been ex­clud­ed from the par­ty,” he said.

Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, a can­di­date for deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, said it’s high time the UNC stopped chas­ing away peo­ple who have opin­ions con­trary to the lead­er­ship.

“A po­lit­i­cal par­ty is about build­ing. You can­not be run­ning peo­ple from the or­gan­i­sa­tion,” she said as the au­di­ence ap­plaud­ed.

“Imag­ine things get so bad they’re mak­ing mem­bers for the PNM. Any­time you say some­thing in the UNC and they dis­agree, they call you a PNM. The UNC has made more mem­bers for the PNM than Kei­th Row­ley.”

The Tabaquite MP warned in­cum­bent Na­tex mem­bers that the winds of change are com­ing.

“They can ei­ther go gen­tly in­to the breeze or they could find them­selves in a storm, but it is up to them,” she said to tu­mul­tuous ap­plause.

The po­lit­i­cal mud­sling­ing that has be­come some­what tra­di­tion­al in UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions was no­tably ab­sent from Paray’s ad­dress. In­stead, he sought to un­der­score that “the po­lit­i­cal en­e­my is the PNM, not the UNC, not my col­leagues!”

Speak­ing mere hours af­ter re­ceiv­ing a scathing let­ter from UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tion­ing his mo­tives and in­tegri­ty, Paray would on­ly say, “I don’t re­spond to harsh words. I am a lo­cal boy, I grew up in Ma­yaro. I grew up where you would get bouff from your par­ents if you didn’t say good morn­ing and good evening.”

In­stead, he put the mem­bers of his slate on alert that they were not there mere­ly for op­tics.

“When we spoke, I made it clear, you are here to work, not to look good. The Pa­tri­ots, which I am sure all of you are, we will not be­have like we are star boys and star girls, we are go­ing to con­tin­ue with the phi­los­o­phy of be­ing ser­vants of the mem­ber­ship of our great par­ty,” he said.

Paray de­scribed the launch as a piv­otal mo­ment in the coun­try’s his­to­ry which co­in­cid­ed with the birth­day of found­ing UNC mem­ber, the late Bas­deo Pan­day. He promised to re­turn the par­ty to be­ing an in­sti­tu­tion that val­ues the in­put of all mem­bers.

“When we win on June 15, I will ask every sin­gle mem­ber of this par­ty who has an idea or sug­ges­tion, to help the par­ty find a new way, a new route to de­vel­op our par­ty and our coun­try. You will be wel­comed, and I will make sure that hap­pens,” Paray de­clared.

He al­so re­peat­ed his promise to find a head­quar­ters for the par­ty, to re­place its prac­tice of rent­ing build­ings. He did, how­ev­er, ques­tion why the UNC still does not have a place to call its own.

“I would prob­a­bly ask on the cam­paign trail, we’ve done a set of fundrais­ers over the last nine years for a head­quar­ters, where is the mon­ey?” he asked.

In the lead-up to June 15, the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots will be con­duct­ing a se­ries of com­mu­ni­ty meet­ings to de­tail its plans to build the UNC.