MP elect and Naparima Constituency executive support Kamla Persad-Bissessar as political leader of the UNC.
Rodney Charles and the Naparima Constituency Executive headed by Nazroodeen Mohammed met in emergency session this morning and unanimously agreed to fully endorse and publicly support Kamla Persad Bissessar as Political Leader of the UNC and PM in the event that the party is declared winner of the recent elections, and Leader of the Opposition in Parliament if the EBC declares otherwise.
We note that the UNC won the popular vote by a reported plurality of 40,622 votes. It further noted that the party did not contest any seats in Tobago and of the reported approximate 355,191 votes in Trinidad alone the UNC gained approximately 55,686 more than the PNM.
It is only because of massive gerrymandering by successive EBC administrations combined with a highly effective HDC voter padding by constructing homes especially in marginal constituencies, that it is near impossible for the UNC to win a general election all votes being equal—or being even nearly equal.
The executive estimates that it will take a plurality of over 120,000 for the UNC to have a chance of winning a general election.
The executive is further asking why middle class Palmiste has been lumped with agricultural Oropouche East and not with middle class San Fernando West with which it is more demographically aligned.
Specifically in Naparima we note the very sophisticated level of creativity it must have taken to carve Moruga/Tableland constituency out of a vast ocean of UNC votes in every surrounding constituency. A lot of diligent searching must have taken place to locate every possible PNM vote to include in Moruga/Tableland. Moruga/Tableland on a million and one criteria ought to be a very safe UNC seat.
Given this massive gerrymandering, changing a leader at this time, and at the behest of those who do not have the party’s interest at heart, will not change the party’s fortunes.
In our view the political leader ran an imaginative, thought provoking, innovative, policy based campaign that found favour with the majority of voters from all demographic groups, especially the youth.
In the circumstances, we support Mrs Bissessar as the political leader of the UNC and strongly oppose those calling for her removal.
Mp elect Naparima