Panday hits ‘election’ trail

Panday appeared to be moving to openly throw his personal weight behind the faction of the UNC led by Leader of the Opposition Kamla Persad-Bissessar against the faction led by UNC political leader Winston Dookeran. Blaming Dookeran for the split in the party, Panday said: “This foolishness has to stop! It’s gone on too long. It has to stop.”

He recalled telling his predecessor in the All Trinidad Sugar Workers Union that he had introduced one-man, one-vote to the union, so it could hang its leaders whenever they desert the members. He said he had established a similar voting provision in the UNC. Panday then attacked Dookeran.

He warned that the history of Trinidad and Tobago had shown that it cannot accommodate more than two political parties, such as shown by the ONR winning 91,000 votes but not a single parliamentary constituency in 1981.

Referring to a possible new party by Dookeran, he said, “That party won’t get 9,000 votes.”

Panday said that people wanting to form the new party wore “jacket and tie” men who don’t like people who plant tomatoes and bhaji but who were in fact the people whose votes decide the outcome of general elections.