Dookeran: I am letting down my bucket

"I am letting my bucket down, which means I am giving up a position as visiting professor of a Canadian university to be of service to the people of Trinidad and Tobago," Dookeran said to thunderous applause.

At the time, he was speaking at the UNC’s weekly Monday Night Forum which was held this week at the party’s Couva North constituency office. Also speaking on the night was current political leader and chairman designate, Basdeo Panday.

Dookeran added that he was in the midst of planning a "decisive strategy that "would rid the country of an inefficient and wasteful PNM Government" at the next General Elections.

Dookeran received thunderous applause as he started to speak as if he were already leader — when he told the crowd, "Let us not deny ourselves but rise to the occasion. Let us move forward and forget the past and engage ourselves in struggle to wrest the Government from a party that does not remember virtues of equality and justice and fair play in dealing with the citizenry.

"I accept the position (political leader) with great humility and I want a clear mandate to form the next Government, as I am sowing the seeds of unity and not of division in the party," Dookeran said.

"I want to bring everybody together and will leave no stone unturned to achieve this goal," he added.

Admitting that there were differences of opinion by UNC members, Dookeran said in the final analysis there must be no hurdles in attaining common objectives, and in that regard as political leader he would be pursuing a vigorous course of action to steer the UNC ship on a positive growth path, aimed at regaining Government status.

He said the country was in a state of crisis when the Executive was against the Judiciary and where there were increases in crime, kidnapping, murder and rape. "The PNM seems clueless in finding solutions."

He even noted that travelling advisories were circulating to avoid Trinidad and Tobago as a tourist destination. "But when we form the next Government we would set all those matters right."

He said that according to a recently published poll, two-thirds of the population wanted change and a re-invigorated UNC was offering itself as the vehicle to effect the changes for which the country was clamouring.

Dookeran said the 2020 vision of the PNM was too "farfetched, noting that, "what we need is a clear vision for 2007 to remove them from office."