Panday — Ramesh offers hope

THE EDITOR: Your front page photo on a Sunday last month of Panday presenting an award to Ramesh in Bombay is worth a million words. The photo offers hope to hundreds of thousands that the two will get back together to rescue the country from the failed leadership of Manning and his incompetent team. But after he returned from London last week after almost two months, Panday says “Ramesh is not an enemy but at the same time, he is not our friend.” Panday’s statement has now lowered the expectations of his supporters who want unity to rescue our country. Panday is wrong.

Ramesh is the UNC’s only hope. The country is sinking deeper into the abyss ever since Robinson blessed Manning with superior moral and spiritual values and made him Prime Minister. Unfortunately, Panday and his incompetent team have not been able to make gains with the population in spite of the failure of Manning as Prime Minister. The UNC lacks political strategy and organisational skills to take on the PNM. The party badly misses the political  and organisational skills of Ramesh. It would be recalled that when Ramesh came into the UNC for the 1991 elections, the party had seven seats.

Ramesh brought organisation, that was badly lacking into the party and the UNC strength doubled to 14 seats. In 1995, the parliamentary strength grew to 17 seats and with it came government in a coalition with the NAR. In 2000, the party won 19 seats and then Panday,  influenced by the parasitic oligarchy, proceeded to expel Ramesh which cost the party the government. In 2001, without Ramesh the UNC began to lose seats — lost one seat in December 2001 and two more seats in October 2002, In addition, the party badly lost the local government elections in July 2003.

So it is very clear that the UNC cannot move forward or make gains without Ramesh. It should be noted that during the tied election of December 2001, Panday accepted the advice of a few MPs and a UNC lawyer who were all opposed to Ramesh and signed the infamous Crowne Plaza Agreement which gave Robinson the opening he needed to appoint  Manning the PM.

Had Panday not signed that agreement, Robinson would have had to appoint Panday as caretaker PM. So Panday was ill advised, again without Ramesh at his side. The same people who gave Panday poor advice in December 2001 are influencing him today to keep Ramesh out of the party. As long as Ramesh is out of the party, the UNC will be out of government. Unlike the UNC MPs, Ramesh does not seem interested or content with being an opposition MP he wants the party to get into government.

SUMINTRA RAMLOGAN
Dow Village