Sudama tells Yetming: Prepare for rough ride

FORMER United National Congress (UNC) government minister Trevor Sudama advised St Joseph MP Gerald Yetming to be prepared to incur the wrath of  UNC Leader Basdeo Panday and his parliamentary colleagues for saying that Panday should go.

Yetming made that statement yesterday in an exclusive Newsday story and also revealed there was widespread opposition in the society towards the Opposition’s policy of non-cooperation with Government. Recalling his own experience in 2001 when he, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Ralph Maraj, spoke out against the UNC’s failure to deal with allegations of corruption, Sudama predicted that Yetming could find himself in the political doghouse for publicly challenging Panday to go. The former minister also recalled that Yetming was one of the persons in 2001 who took no position on the issue of unanswered corruption allegations against the UNC. “He never took a position. I didn’t think Mr Yetming would be so forthright,” he stated. However Sudama reiterated that Panday will not leave because “he doesn’t see a great urgency to do so”.

 He also stated it was pure nonsense for Panday to say that he would remain at the helm until the party chooses a new leader.  “If you want to go, go. It is not a question of waiting until the party selects a leader,” Sudama remarked. The former minister said Panday’s continued refusal to resign shows that “the party is not sufficiently viable to find a leader” or survive without him. He believed that while Yetming was “trying to be diplomatic”, the truth was the UNC needs “to restructure as of yesterday”. Sudama offered his own opinion as to why former UNC frontliners Carlos John, Jearlean John and Roy Augustus had nothing to say about Panday remaining as party leader. “Now that defeat has stared them in the face, they have gone back to where they came. Back to the PNM,” he stated.