Warner hits out at UNC critics

UNC Deputy Political Leader Jack Warner has stoutly defended the report of the inquiry into the recount of ballots for the post of Vice-Chairman in the UNC’s October election. “Who vex, vex. I have a job to do for the party and I will do it,” said Warner, who also revealed that he was proposing to give less time to his football work as his political work “was heating up.” Warner was appointed the sole commissioner of an inquiry following a recount in which the original winner Gerald Yetming was displaced and Vasant Bharath emerged victorious. Warner claimed that criticism from some of his former “Progressive” colleagues that his report was a sham and a “cover-up” was pure sour grapes. “If it (the report) had said something else, it would not have been a sham. If it had gone another way, it would’ve been fine. Some of these guys are hiding behind smokescreens. There are people who wanted a particular result. But you see me, I have no axe to grind. So they are disappointed and therefore they have construed the report as mere sham and theatre,” he said.

The report, which concluded that there was nothing irregular about the recount and which has firmly entrenched Vasant Bharath in the Vice-Chairman post, has been deemed a masquerade and a contrived result. Warner, was in a fighting mood, however, as he declared that the report could stand up to scrutiny. “There are guys in the party who have a particular agenda and that agenda is confined to them and their immediate environment. I am not about self. And that is why when I have erred, I can say to Mr Panday, ‘I made a mistake and I am sorry.’ There are guys in this party whose egos are bigger than the party and the country,” Warner stated. He said he had no ego to satisfy. Warner said the person most affected by the recount, Gerald Yetming, chose not to attend the inquiry even though he was invited by CEO Tim Gopeesingh. “Gerald Yetming attended a meeting in the same room, on the same day as the inquiry took place. He left that meeting at 4.50 and the inquiry started at 5 pm. Two meetings in the very same room, both chaired by me (and he attended one and not the other).

“If he was so strong in his conviction (that there were irregularities in the recount), why didn’t he stay for the inquiry?” Warner asked. Warner said Gary Griffith, who submitted a report alleging that there were irregularities in the recount, was invited both by himself and by Tim Gopeesingh to attend the inquiry. Warner said Griffith tended to be a spokesman for Yetming. He said Griffith telephoned him on the day of the inquiry to ask him (Warner) if he needed him. “And I told him, ‘yes. Come and say what you saw,’” Warner said. Griffith, whose position as regional representative was confirmed after a recount, did not show at the conduct of the inquiry. The inquiry found that the allegations contained in Griffith’s written submission had no merit.

Warner stated that Ganace Ramdial, chairman of the Elections Committee, spent three hours before the inquiry answering questions. “And when he was finished, I was ashamed of some of the things that I had said (previously),” Warner said. “And I apologised to him. I was guilty of rushing to judgment,” he said. He added that Ramdial was vilified by himself and others for no just cause. Saying that there were some situations in which one could not satisfy all interests, Warner said: “I had a very, very difficult task. It is like football. We win. (They say) we beat a substandard team. We lose. (They say) we are (a) substandard (team).” The report concluded that there was no deliberate attempt to leverage the recount results and that the reversal was due to “sloppy work by the presiding officers, poor conditions at the polling stations — such as inadequate lighting, general discomfort, and fatigue.”