Dookeran challenges Kamla

Dookeran and Persad-Bissessar met yesterday at Parliament Committee Room Number Two following the 4.30 pm adjournment of the House of Representatives, and were locked behind closed doors for the next two hours.

A somewhat sombre-looking Persad-Bissessar was the first to emerge when the meeting concluded at 6.30 pm, and she told journalists that the talks with Dookeran were “inconclusive.”

The Opposition Leader said Dookeran had given her a series of proposals which she needed to consider and they would speak over the weekend.

Asked whether she got Dookeran to clarify reports that he was going to launch a new political party called the New National Congress in Aranjuez on September 10, Persad-Bissessar replied that the meeting was inconclusive but she hoped to meet again with Dookeran “very soon.”

A more upbeat Dookeran emerged from Parliament a few minutes later, describing the talks as “very useful” and indicating that he gave Persad-Bissessar several concrete proposals that must be part of any agenda for them to “work together for the establishment of a single party” to successfully challenge the ruling PNM in next year’s general elections.

Chief among the 16 proposals which Dookeran gave to Persad-Bissessar was a question asking whether she agreed with him that the existing dual leadership system in the party (Persad-Bissessar as Opposition Leader and himself as Political Leader) was “impractical, dysfunctional and unworkable” and whether she would work with him to establish “single leadership (the Opposition Leader and Political Leader being the same person) in the UNC.

Persad-Bissessar replaced Basdeo Panday as Opposition Leader in June after he was found guilty by the court of being in breach of the Integrity in Public Life Act.

Dookeran’s unity proposals to Persad-Bissessar also included accepting Panday’s resignation as UNC chairman and electing a new chairman; instructing the UNC’s national executive to drop the no-confidence motion against him; allowing him to guide the UNC’s political affairs as the political leader as stated in Article 27 of the UNC’s Constitution, not to engage in any temporary charade of “unity” for political convenience; reinstatement of Robin Montano, Sadiq Baksh, Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan and Roy Augustus to the Senate, and similar reinstatements of Baksh, Capt Gary Griffith and Carol Cuffy Dowlath to the UNC national executive.

On reports that he planned to launch a new political party, Dookeran said, “I believe that I cannot form a new party. The people will have to give their mandate and their permission for anything to emerge.”

Dookeran added that the formation of a single party was a major part of yesterday’s unity talks and he would speak with Persad-Bissessar over the weekend.