United National Congress (UNC) MPs, past and present, are now stepping out and openly calling for the party’s political leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar to step down. Leading the call is San Juan/Barataria MP Dr Fuad Khan, one of several UNC MPs absent at the launch of Persad-Bissessar’s party leadership election campaign on Saturday in Penal.
“I am not supporting her for leader. She could be chairman,” Khan, a former health minister, bluntly told the Guardian yesterday from hurricane-ravaged Mexico where he is attending a medical conference. Khan said, for the first time, he was going to be blunt and tell the truth. Throwing out a call for the return of UNC founders, Basdeo Panday and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, and Jack Warner, he said, “You have to build a party that embraces everyone.
“Panday, Warner, Ramesh, everybody who was there from the start was kicked out.
“If you are carrying a magnet for unity, why is it that everybody who formed the party was never embraced? What is the common factor that disallowed them from coming together with the UNC.”
At the launch of her campaign to be re-elected UNC leader in the December 5 internal party elections, Persad-Bissessar, at Shiva Boys College, asked supporters to let her once again be the “magnet of unity” in the UNC. Khan, asked if UNC supporters would embrace Warner, who publicly took credit for Persad-Bissessar administration’s defeat in the September 7 general election, replied, “He did not bring down the last administration. He brought down Kamla.”
Asked if, along with Panday, he will be embracing his daughter, Mickela Panday, who has the backing of some UNC supporters, Khan said, “Yes. What’s wrong with her?” Told his name was also being bandied about among UNC supporters as a potential leader of the party, he said, “People have been calling me about it but I haven’t given it much thought.”
Former minister of Tertiary Education, Science and Technology, Fazal Karim, said Persad-Bissessar did not invite him to her campaign launch and gave a strong hint he was not on her side. “I was not invited. And some other colleagues. She didn’t invite many people,” the Chaguanas East MP said.
So, is he supporting her for party leader? “I am looking to see what is happening. I haven’t given a commitment anywhere yet or committed to contesting any party position yet.” Giving a clearer hint, Karim added, “But we have to have an alternative.” On the apparent splintering of the UNC into different factions, he said, “I know about divided we fall and united we win.”
Several other senior UNC MPs were also absent from Persad-Bissessar’s launch Saturday, including Dr Roodal Moonilal, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Ramona Ramdial and Rudranath Indarsingh. Persad-Bissessar said she wanted to make it clear she did not invite them. Efforts to reach them yesterday were unsuccessful.
Moonilal and Vasant Bharath said they had been approached by supporters to contest the leadership post. Both confirmed this to the Sunday Guardian but said they had been thinking about it.
Leader discredited themselves-Panday
Panday, who founded the party, said he did not know what Khan was talking about since he and his daughter never left the UNC. “We never left. We are life members of the UNC.” As for running for leader of the UNC, he said, “You can only lead if that is the wish of the membership and that is only known through an election.”
So will he contest? “You do not contest an election you are sure is going to be rigged. The same people contesting the election are the same people organising it.” Panday echoed the same sentiments expressed by Mickela in her Sunday Guardian column yesterday.
Former UNC attorney general, Ramesh Maharaj, told about Khan’s call for bringing back the old guard, replied, “No way. The UNC leaders have discredited themselves and betrayed their membership. “I think the UNC will never recover until the next 15 to 20 years.” Maharaj said the UNC needs a new set of leaders and he does not intend to associate with the party until it gets them.
Sacked justice minister in the former Kamla Persad-Bissessar administration, Herbert Volney, has added his voice to those calling for her to step down as UNC leader. Volney indicated he had supported her in the September 7 general election but felt it was time to let her go.
“Given her leadership of the UNC-led coalition of parties (People’s Partnership) into five successive (election) losses, and a likely additional two in local government by-elections in December, Kamla has lost her appeal outside the heartland and is unlikely to return to power after her summary rejection in the critical five marginal constituencies.
“She has to either step down now and make way for an orderly transition or condemn her party to a long term in Opposition.”
“She is a spent political force. It is sad for many of us who gave her two chances, in 2010 and 2015,” he stated in a Facebook post yesterday.
Opposition Leader: Its a democratic process
Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in response to dissenting MPs, said yesterday, “The party is democratic. It’s the membership who will decide.” Persad-Bissessar believes her chances at retaining the post of UNC leader are “very good.” She said it was not a matter of her “blanking” UNC MPs who were not invited to her campaign launch on Saturday.
“I did not do any mass invitations. It was not a mass mobilisation.” As for how she felt about reports that Moonilal and Bharath were to be her contenders for the leadership post, she said, “They have not so indicated to me. I will not take what I have read as the gospel truth.”
Persad-Bissessar said she had spoken to both MPs and they did indicate they had not made up their minds about supporting her. She said if the membership does not choose her she “will have to accept their decision”. A number of Opposition MPs, including Dr Suruj Rambachan, Dr Lackram Bodoe, Dr David Lee, Rodney Charles and Barry Padarath were present at the Opposition Leader’s campaign launch.
Rambachan, on his Facebook post on Friday, confirmed his support for Persad-Bissessar. “Whenever a party in government loses a general election there ensues a hue and a cry for the leader to resign. “Following the defeat of the UNC there have been calls from various quarters for Kamla Persad-Bissessar to resign.
“Equally, it must not be forgotten that 340,000 placed their fate in her and in the Partnership, by which support they have indicated a high measure of satisfaction with the performance of the Partnership and her leadership.” Several former ministers and current regional corporation chairmen and councillors were also present at the event. She urged supporters not to attack opponents in the party’s internal elections, saying, “We are still one UNC family.”