New political leader for UNC by January 2004

BASDEO PANDAY will resign as United National Congress (UNC) Political Leader in January 2004. This was the hint given by party chairman Wade Mark as he spoke to reporters following a special UNC national retreat at the Rudranath Capildeo Learning Resource Centre in Couva yesterday.

“The UNC  is on a rebuilding and re-transformation thrust to take over governance of the country from the People’s National Movement,” he said. Mark said a 15- member working committee headed by St Augustine MP Winston Dookeran has been created to develop strategies that will help the UNC return to government. He further revealed by November 30 the party will have a new constitution and internal executive elections will be held in early January, in which all posts (including political leader) will be contested thus paving the way for Panday to resign in early 2004. Panday has repeatedly expressed his desire to retire from active politics at age 70 but has also insisted that he would not leave the UNC vulnerable to political predators.

At the retreat, Dookeran presented a paper surrounding which heavy discussions took place in respect of “an action plan that will soon be implemented aimed at future governance.” The meeting was attended by all 16 UNC MPs, senators, 53 local government representatives and other party officials. After Dookeran presented his paper, the retreat was split into seven workshops to discuss the report in detail. “Most of the reports submitted by the groups centered around equity and justice, policy issues, philosophy and ideology of the party and the need for national re-unification,” Mark said.

UNC Strategy Officer, Dr Roodal Moonilal spoke about “the collapse of education which was taking place, with ten schools not re-opening and books and book grants not being distributed on time.”  He said it was a disgrace and the UNC will right all those matters when re-elected. He also said the Government had no clue about the crime and , “any plan they have put forward has blown up in their faces.” Election officer Dr Tim Gopeesingh is in charge of “re-shaping and re-fashioning the country’s constitution” and said the party held several meetings throughout the country to gather info about re-designing the party’s constitution. Mark described the meeting as “extremely successful” with people expressing concern about the state of the country under the PNM.