In what seems to suggest the end of an era in politics, a UNC delegate, to applause from the floor, called on Political Leader Basdeo Panday to step down as leader.
The call came at a meeting of some 500 UNC delegates at the party’s National Congress held at Rienzi Complex yesterday.
The delegate, who declined to give his name but party sources identified him as ’Abdul’, recommended to Panday, who chaired yesterday’s meeting, that he hand the leadership over to Deputy Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar on an interim basis until internal elections are held.
’There is only one person who I think could take this party to victory,’ Abdul said, before naming Persad-Bissessar. The delegate sat next to Naparima MP Nizam Baksh during yesterday’s proceedings.
The UNC Congress later endorsed a resolution for internal party elections to be held on January 28, 2010.
’Mr Chairman, I am sure that almost everybody in this hall today supports what I am saying. I think it is high time that we give Kamla Persad-Bissessar a chance (as leader). If there is any doubt, because, Mr Chairman, you always say that you would listen to the wishes of the people, if there is any doubt about what I am saying, you could pass a ballot here today and let there be a secret vote and you would see what I am saying. It is not that I love Mr Panday less, but I love this party more. And... this has nothing to do with you or Mrs Persad-Bissessar- this has to do with us... the members of the party, and getting into government,’ Abdul said. UNC officials said Abdul came from the constituency of Caroni Central.
Panday thanked him for his comments, saying: ’Your observations would be taken into consideration.’ But later Panday told reporters that the January elections would be the opportunity for all party members to say who they wanted to be leader of the party.
Asked whether he planned to contest a post in those elections, Panday said: ’If I get nominated, yes. I may not get nominated.’
Persad-Bissessar was noncommittal on the delegate’s call. ’That is the view of one member here today. Certainly it is not the view of everyone out there. This is a democracy.’
Told that many people in the audience applauded the delegate’s statements, Persad-Bissessar said: ’I’m sure I have some fans,’ she said.
Asked whether she planned to throw her hat in the ring for the January internal elections, Persad-Bissessar said she would have to speak to her constituents before making such a decision.
She stressed, however, that she supported the statements of COP’s Robert Mayers and Panday on the issue of unity, saying that the only way that the country could go forward and remove the PNM, was if there was opposition unity. -See story below
’As Mr Panday said today, unity doesn’t mean one party dissolving and becoming into the other. There are various forms of unity,’ she said, adding that there can be unity on the issue of property taxes and crime. ’There would be obstacles. We would go backward and forward, but we would never stop trying to unite everyone together to defeat the PNM,’ she stated.
But Panday seemed to be in conflict with the COP at times, on the issue of unity. He later explained that while he was glad to hear Mayers’ statements on unity, he (Panday) felt he had to deal in his address with those forces within the COP ’who say that the leader of the UNC must die before there is unity’.
In his feature address therefore, which he consistently stressed was written on Saturday night, (before he heard Mayers speech at the Congress), Panday said: ’Talk of unity has been in the air for some time but nothing seems to be happening. Sometimes the reasons are obvious even though irrational...sometimes sadly they are based on spite, malice, hatred and ill will...Can you imagine that a political party that failed to win a single seat in the last parliamentary elections telling us in the UNC with 15 seats in the Lower House and six in the Upper House that if we want unity we must dissolve the UNC and join them?’ There was resounding applause.
’That suggestion is not only naive, provocative and insulting; it also displays a total lack of understanding of the political reality’. Among those nodded and clapping as he spoke, was Sharon Gopaul-Mc Nicol.
Looking directly at Mayers, Panday emphasised that he meant no malice to anyone. ’I was just examining this issue (last night)’.
’For some to suggest that before they will even sit down to discuss unity, the leader of another political party must commit Harakiri (ritual suicide) before there can be unity is to be not only equally puerile, but rude and insolent. Such persons cannot be serious about unity,’ Panday said. He added that unity therefore had to come in a large measure from the grassroots.
