Seepersad-Bachan unafraid

After an emergency UNC national executive meeting at Rienzi Complex in Couva on Sunday, Panday said, "I am reminding them that people will not treat this executive with contempt and those who do will have a price to pay for that. If you are in the Senate, you pay it now. If you are a Member of Parliament (in the House of Representatives), you will pay it later."

Speaking with Newsday following yesterday’s cancellation of a parliamentary Joint Select Committee (JSC) meeting with the Ministry of Energy at the Red House, Seepersad-Bachan questioned Panday’s warning and wondered if the national executive was the only institution being treated with contempt. "The executive is not the only institution within the party that exists. What I see happening right now is that a number of institutions in the party are being undermined, including the rank and file of the membership of this party is being treated with contempt," she declared.

Seepersad-Bachan said while the UNC should resolve its problems internally, "the problem that we have in this party is that we have no mechanisms to solve internal conflicts." She claimed that attempts to strengthen the UNC’s institutions to deal with internal problems always end in failure.

"The institutions of the party are just not there to facilitate the kinds of discussion that we are talking about. That is why we have had all these fallouts," she lamented. Asked if she was afraid of being removed as an Opposition senator for publicly articulating her views, Seepersad-Bachan replied, "It does not bother me." Robin Montano was fired as an Opposition senator last Friday for what Panday said was a violation of the UNC executive’s decision about airing party matters in public.

The Senate sits today at 1.30 pm, and UNC CEO Dr Tim Gopeesingh was appointed last Friday to replace Montano. Seepersad-Bachan claimed that national executive members who successfully contested the UNC’s October 2 2005 internal elections on Panday’s Patriots slate have discussed party matters publicly, but no one has sanctioned them. She also said no one in the UNC has been sanctioned for what she described as continued internal attempts to undermine UNC political leader Winston Dookeran.