Panday regrets choosing Dookeran

Meanwhile, sources in the Dookeran camp yesterday said Dookeran, incensed by the actions of the UNC national executive on Wednesday, will resign as UNC political leader and launch his own party.

Panday also declared that any party led by Dookeran will not win any of the 41 seats up for grabs in next year’s general elections, will not hurt the UNC’s chances of winning those elections and Dookeran is committing “political suicide.” The internal warfare in the Opposition’s ranks came to a head at Wednesday’s national executive at Rienzi Complex, Couva, when the executive announced the formation of a three-member leadership council (Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and UNC deputy leaders Jack Warner and Wade Mark) to guide the party’s political affairs in the absence of a functioning political leader. The party will also seek legal advice on the matter.

Dookeran did not attend that meeting, but has set his own agenda for a UNC national executive meeting tomorrow at his constituency office in Tunapuna. Dookeran and Persad-Bissessar met on August 25 at Parliament, where he gave her a list of 16 proposals to unite the party

Chief among those proposals was one single leadership of the UNC. Sources yesterday claimed those proposals have been rejected by the UNC national executive.

Panday yesterday said he felt personally hurt over Dookeran’s actions, as it was him who begged the UNC national executive to hold its hand on the no-confidence motion against Dookeran. Panday said the UNC had “bent over backwards” to find common ground with Dookeran but it was clear that Dookeran has no desire to unite. Panday said Dookeran is not his own man and was guided by financiers and advisors to form a new political party. He added that those same persons work for the PNM and would do anything to hurt the UNC’s chances of winning the next elections.

Asked if the UNC’s chances of winning next year’s polls would be hurt if Dookeran formed his own party, Panday predicted that a Dookeran-led party would suffer the same fate as the now defunct Organisation for National Reconstruction (ONR) which failed to win a single seat in the 1981 general elections. He said Dookeran could not win any UNC votes with a new party. Panday said history would remember Dookeran as the worst judge of human character.

Speaking with Newsday at President’s House following last night’s National Awards ceremony, Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar said the unity talks with Dookeran were dead, and Dookeran must resign as UNC political leader and leave the UNC.

“Mr Dookeran has abdicated his responsibilities as political leader for the longest while. That (his resignation as UNC political leader) would be a mere formality. There is de jure and de facto. De facto, he has not been political leader for the longest while. We are now discovering, it appears, that his intention was to form his own party,” Persad-Bissessar declared.

She said there was no chance of the UNC national executive meeting with Dookeran tomorrow at his Tunapuna constituency office as he requested them do. “As I indicated before there would be no useful purpose to be served in one-on-one talks with him. From the evidence that is being uncovered, it is clear that he intends to launch off on his own and form his own party,” she reiterated.