COP to meet on way forward

The election, which was supposed to have taken place today, has been postponed yet again after a COP member filed an injunction in the San Fernando High Court on Thursday against the staging of the election on grounds there was no national executive committee in the party due to the number of resignations that took place last week.

Three high-ranking COP members, interim political leader Dr Anirudh Mahabir, deputy political leader Lorraine Pouchet and general secretary Clyde Weatherhead, resigned on Tuesday.

Justice Ricky Rahim ruled in the San Fernando High Court on Friday that the election should be postponed.

Bahadur said the situation demanded that the national executive meet and put a committee back in place.

“It means that the chairman has to meet with the national executive.

They have to put up names and we have to appoint people and go to a national council meeting. The national council will pass it and say, ‘This is the new election committee.’ Then we could do the elections,” he said.

The election is being contested by former COP deputy political leader Dr Sharon-Ann Gopaul-Mc Nicol and ex-party chairmen Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan and Nicole Dyer-Griffith.

The leadership election was to be held initially on July 9 but was postponed after a COP member challenged Dyer-Griffith’s legitimacy to contest the poll on grounds she was not a bonafide member of the party.

That matter also has been filed in the San Fernando High Court, awaiting hearing.

Asked if the party’s postponement of the election could taint its image, Bahadur said: “We are going according to the constitution and nobody could fault us for that.”