Yetming: I no longer support Panday

As a tangible demonstration of this position, Yetming declared that as from today’s sitting of the House of Representatives, he will no longer be gracing the Opposition front benches. Rather, he will sit in the Opposition back bench; he will take no further part in Opposition activities in the Parliament, unless that activity is initiated by the party’s political leader, Winston Dookeran; and he will not be attending official party caucuses.

According to Yetming, he has definitely and completely withdrawn his support for Basdeo Panday as Opposition Leader.

Yetming said he now recognises Dookeran as the Leader of the Opposition and will be taking all his future directions in the political sphere from him. Sources suggested that Yetming’s move was a vital part of the framing and formulating of policies that will promote Dookeran’s political agenda.

Yetming was first elected the vice-chairman but later lost to the Patriot’s Vasant Barath in a recount. This is a source of major controversy within the UNC.

But the outspoken MP wanted to make it clear that his course of action as described earlier was not motivated by the electoral reversal or by pique.

"Mr Panday has been doing everything, particularly within recent weeks, to make people lose respect for him, including people close to him and around him," Yetming said. He added that Panday encouraged and participated in a vicious and insulting attack on those involved in a democratic internal election.

Furthermore, Yetming said when questions were raised about the integrity of the voting process in the UNC elections, both within the party and in the general population, the chairman (Basdeo Panday) and his executive turned a blind eye. This, despite a call from the political leader to investigate it. Yetming said the chairman’s lack of interest in getting to the bottom of these allegations, could only add to the speculation that high ranking members were involved.

"Winston Dookeran has the responsibility as political leader for putting forward a team for the UNC in which the electorate has confidence. But how can you go forward with all these allegation of vote-rigging?" he asked.

Yetming, argued that "in the interest of decency and integrity" Dookeran must be allowed to reshape the UNC.

The St Joseph MP argued the only way Dookeran could function properly as political leader, is for him to assume "his next rightful position" — that of Opposition Leader. And in this regard Yetming said he believed that Panday has a key role to play.

Just as he cleared the path for Dookeran to become political leader when he (Panday) signed his nomination form, Yetming said Panday now has a moral obligation to write to President George Maxwell Richards, and indicate that Dookeran now commands his (Panday’s) support in the Parliament. When asked if he would be writing the President to indicate his support for Dookeran, Yetming said he is ready and willing to sign any letter once the process is initiated by Dookeran or Panday.

Outside of this scenario, Yetming conceded the question of Dookeran becoming the Opposition Leader remained "tricky" because "it is an 18/18 situation" (with Dookeran having the support of eight MPs while Panday has the support of the other eight MPs in the Parliament). In response to questions, Yetming said the only reason he could think of why Panday would have given Dookeran the political leadership and then proceed to undermine him, was because he (Panday) planned for Dookeran to be "mere window-dressing."

"Mr Panday had said in the past that he was no longer politically good-looking and he was clearly hoping that Winston Dookeran would mask his (Panday) alleged ugliness," he said.

Returning to the question of the controversial recount, Yetming said he supported the position taken by Dookeran that the elections management committee should be re-invited to do its work. Yetming stressed that the issue is not about whether Yetming should hold office in the executive or not.

It was about the party coming clean to the party. "Mr Panday has said that he wants to build a team of disciplined people.

"But he has to allow Mr Dookeran to build a team of not only disciplined persons, but persons of integrity... And I don’t want to blow my own trumpet. But to replace me (as vice-chairman) in an alleged flawed recount with people of questionable history?" he asked.

This, he stressed added to the public perception of the unsuitability of the party to hold public office.