Panday moves to mend UNC rift

However, some of them expressed concerns that a one-hour meeting was much too short to make significant inroads in mending the broken fences. "In order to heal the wounds you have to clean the wound, and one hour is hardly enough time to do even that," one candidate said.

The meeting was carded for 5 pm yesterday at the party’s Rienzi Complex headquarters in Couva.

Chaguanas Member of Parliament Manohar Ramsaran, who indicated that he would have attended the meeting, said the party had found itself in a "peculiar" position, since this was the first time that the executive was taking instructions from the chairman. "The Political Leader should be the one pointing the way forward," he said, adding that Panday should respect the position of Political Leader Winston Dookeran.

Also indicating their intention to attend the meeting were Deputy Political Leader Jack Warner and Senator Robin Montano. Warner said he planned to ventilate all his concerns, while Montano refused to comment on his views of the meeting.

Roodal Moonilal, who said he would not attend the meeting because of a prior lecturing appointment at the University of the West Indies, said it was good that all executive members could come together to discuss the problems that were plaguing the party.

According to Moonilal, the three most important issues to address would be the uncertainty of the status of the Opposition Leader, the creation of separate committees within the party so it could settle down to its work, and coming to an understanding over the controversial recount leading to the removal of St Augustine MP Gerald Yetming as vice-chairman.

Yetming told Newsday he would be unable to attend the meeting because he had a previous engagement. However, he indicated that he had sent his apologies.