‘All’s fair in love and elections’

SIPARIA MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar, responding to charges by St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming that she was attempting to grab power within the UNC, yesterday said she was free to support any individual she wanted for leadership of the party and to vote anyway she wanted.

However, Independent UNC MP for Barataria/San Juan Dr Fuad Khan (who together with Pointe-a-Pierre MP Gillian Lucky) broke ranks with the party earlier this year, condemned the internal squabbling taking place in the UNC and described his former parliamentary/political colleagues as "fools attacking themselves for positions which are emotional."

In a frank and exclusive interview with Sunday Newsday yesterday, Yetming charged that Persad-Bissessar was leading a campaign to postpone the internal elections to keep Panday in office and prevent St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran from succeeding him as leader. Yetming claimed this move, which was initiated by a letter asking for the party’s executive elections to be deferred from September 18 to October 2, was being orchestrated by a "small group of selfish MPs" who were putting self-interest before the good of the UNC. He also claimed Persad-Bissessar was the letter’s author.

However, Persad-Bissessar yesterday denied that she was making any grab for power in the UNC or that she was part of any group of UNC MPs who were trying to gain control of the party’s leadership. The Siparia MP said she was not the author of the letter referred to by Yetming and that letter was drafted after consensus was reached between herself and the other seven signatories — Opposition MPs Kelvin Ramnath, Chandresh Sharma, Harry Partap, Dr Hamza Rafeeq, Dr Adesh Nanan, Subhas Panday and Nizam Baksh. Yetming, Dookeran, Ganga Singh, Roodal Moonilal and Manohar Ramsaran did not sign the letter.

Persad-Bissessar sidestepped claims by Yetming that Partap and Rafeeq received "frantic calls" while they were abroad about the reasons the elections should be deferred. She said both MPs were fully aware of all the facts and did not sign the letter based on flawed information. Partap is still overseas and attempts yesterday to contact Rafeeq (who returned home recently) were unsuccessful.

Efforts to contact singh and Ramsaran were also unsuccessful and all Moonilal was prepared to say was that he would not discuss any party matter in public. Dookeran declined comment on Yetming’s claims. Yetming said he was prepared to hitch his political wagon to a Dookeran-led UNC because Dookeran brought leadership qualities that were vital for the party’s development.

Persad-Bissessar and Yetming appeared to have a slight consensus about the existence of a "small clique" in the UNC that has been pressuring Panday to resign and to anoint his successor. However, Persad-Bissessar was unable to say who were the members of this small clique and whether any of them were sitting UNC MPs. "There are differences of opinion as to the manner in which the leadership of the party is to be determined. I do not share the view of a small clique who have been pressuring Mr Panday that it is in the party’s best interest that he anoint a leader and leave. The party is not a political dynasty," she declared. Persad-Bissessar said the view expressed by the letter’s signatories "has nothing to do with grabs or selfishness but is in keeping with a democratic party and democratic processes."

Asked why this letter was issued requesting the elections’ deferral for yet another time, Persad-Bissessar said she was not going to engage in a "tit for tat" response to every claim made by Yetming (party’s internal rebuilding processes and crisis in the country) about why the elections continue to be postponed.

Meanwhile, Khan said he was deeply disturbed by what was transpiring in the UNC and lamented that senior UNC party members did not understand the role of an opposition party in a democracy such as Trinidad and Tobago. He said UNC members should be directing their energies towards fighting the PNM and its policies rather than each other. Khan added that everyone in the UNC had a right to "throw their hat in the ring" during its internal elections.

Former UNC attorney-general and party deputy leader Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj said the claims made by Yetming were reflective of the fateful internal elections of June 2001 (the beginning of the UNC’s fall from power) when the UNC’s hierarchy did not abide by the membership’s call for reform in the party and disregarded the elections’ results. Maharaj said the UNC was weaker today than when he joined it in 1991 and when he was dismissed from Panday’s Cabinet in 2001.

Former UNC government minister Trevor Sudama, who was ejected from the party along with Maharaj and Ralph Maraj (who later rejoined the PNM), said Yetming’s revelations show a glaring absence of democracy in the UNC.

He said this was a spin-off of Panday’s decision not to accept Maharaj as deputy leader in 2001, because he had beaten his favourite for the post — former minister Carlos John.

While he did not know all that was "playing behind the scenes" in the UNC, Sudama said these developments coupled with the now abandoned calls for unity and reconciliation in the party (during and immediately after Panday’s incarceration in June) show that the Opposition is in no shape to contest, let alone win, general elections in TT.

Panday, who has repeatedly said that he desired to step down as UNC leader, left the country last week to attend his daughter’s wedding in Scotland. UNC CEO Dr Tim Gopeesingh said he discussed the statements made by Yetming with UNC chairman Wade Mark and both of them have agreed that the party’s internal business will not be dealt with in the media.

Asked whether he and Lucky would welcome Yetming if he (Yetming) decided to declare himself an independent MP, Khan did not believe any of the other UNC MPs "have the guts" to do what they (himself and Lucky) did.

Yetming said the October 2 executive elections would be "a defining moment for the UNC and for me personally." "I do not intend to be part of a group that is determined to remain in Opposition," he said.

At a PNM public meeting in Laventille on Saturday, Prime Minister Patrick Manning threw out yet another hint of early general elections in TT.