Panday: Dookeran no lame duck despite Team Patriots win

So stated UNC Chairman Basdeo Panday yesterday as he commented on the results of the internal elections. "I don’t carry a whip in my hand," he said, when asked if he would allow Dookeran a free hand.

Noting that the Constitution defined the parameters of a leader, Panday stressed that the function of a leader depended on his own strength and character.

Panday also said yesterday that the fact that persons he had campaigned against won their positions, proved "that the membership of the UNC was very intelligent, very discerning, and nobody could influence them against their will." "It is a very, very good sign," he added.

He was not however prepared to retract the statements made about these persons during the campaign. He said he still believed that Warner would be overseas too often. "Maybe he would decide now that he would be in Trinidad more often. If he has, I would be very happy," Panday said.

Told that the feeling was that with him as chairman, Dookeran would not have much space to set his own agenda, Panday asked, "Why do you feel that? Why do you not feel that with Mr Dookeran as political leader I wouldn’t have much space to function as chairman?" He said the political leader and the chairman were two separate jobs. "The chairman’s job is to deal with party and Mr Dookeran’s job is to deal with the political dimension of the struggle," he said.

Panday insisted that he did not have control of the Executive. "An Executive has been selected," he said. He said however that he would seek to influence members of the Executive. "Of course I will seek to influence them. That is my job, isn’t it? To influence the way the party goes. What you expect me to be, like a doormat? Of course I must influence the party with what I think it should do, what we should do. And I will win, I have an Executive. It may be a compromised decision. That is what the whole democratic process is about, isn’t it?"

Panday said whichever way the elections went, it did not matter who won. The point is that we achieved a tremendous exercise, he said, adding that no other political party had chosen its leaders the way the UNC did. "It was a process. It was not a fight between anybody. Now that having been finished it is plain sailing towards the next election," he said.

He conceded that the campaign got a bit "nasty" but this was no more so than what happens in the United States in the primaries system. "You must expect that. If we were all perfect there would be no need for the church," he said.

Asked whether his statement at the end of his Budget presentation about moving on meant that he would relinquish the position of Opposition Leader, Panday replied, "Didn’t you hear what I said? (I said that this is the last Budget reply I shall deliver in this capacity). The next one might be in the capacity of the Prime Minister. I don’t know. It depends on how I feel," he said laughing.