Ken Ali

In an elec­tion year, 57-year-old Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar this week­end moves clos­er to be­com­ing a prime min­is­te­r­i­al can­di­date. And Bas­deo Pan­day's colour­ful po­lit­i­cal ca­reer edged clos­er to its end. Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day se­cured the de­ci­sive sup­port of a sev­enth Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, which means she is like­ly to be­come Op­po­si­tion Leader with­in days. Dr Tim Gopeesingh an­nounced at a mid-morn­ing news con­fer­ence that he had de­cid­ed to pitch his sup­port for Per­sad-Bisses­sar "in the in­ter­est of pre­serv­ing the UNC's sta­bil­i­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty and in the in­ter­est of serv­ing the peo­ple who elect­ed me to of­fice." Pan­day, Trinidad and To­ba­go's longest-serv­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader, re­act­ed testi­ly to Gopeesingh's de­ci­sion, telling the Sun­day Guardian he was "dis­ap­point­ed" at the move. He claimed he had been re­as­sured mere days be­fore of Gopeesingh's sup­port.

Asked whether he would re­sign as Op­po­si­tion Leader to avoid his awk­ward dis­missal, Pan­day said, "No–for the sake of his­to­ry!" He added: "I want his­to­ry to record what is tak­ing place." He con­ced­ed that this is "most like­ly" his last week as Op­po­si­tion Leader. Gopeesingh, MP for Ca­roni East, told the me­dia: "I need to recog­nise that the peo­ple have spo­ken and it is our du­ty to lis­ten to them." Per­sad-Bisses­sar, MP for Siparia, copped the post of UNC Po­lit­i­cal Leader with an over­whelm­ing vic­to­ry in the par­ty's ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion on Jan­u­ary 24. She is now ex­pect­ed to be the par­ty's sin­gu­lar leader in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion, ex­pect­ed to be held by the third quar­ter of the year. With the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­tin­u­ing to pub­licly mo­bilise, there is wide­spread spec­u­la­tion that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning would sum­mon a gen­er­al elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar: I'm grate­ful

As she stud­ied a state­ment is­sued by Gopeesingh, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was "grate­ful" for his sup­port. Per­sad-Bisses­sar is an at­tor­ney with post-grad­u­ate cre­den­tials and the hold­er of a de­gree in ex­ec­u­tive busi­ness man­age­ment. She has been an MP since 1995, peg­ging down key min­is­te­r­i­al port­fo­lios and act­ing briefly as prime min­is­ter.

Gopeesingh: One of the most painful things I had to do

Gopeesingh told Sun­day Guardian that on Fri­day night he in­formed Pan­day of his de­ci­sion. "I am a sur­geon, but this was one of the most painful things I have had to do," he said. He said Pan­day asked him whether he would hold back on his de­ci­sion. Gopeesingh told re­porters Pan­day was his "revered men­tor" who "taught us that the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy can­not be com­pro­mised." He praised Pan­day for his "over 40 years of un­equalled ser­vice to the peo­ple of this coun­try." He told Sun­day Guardian he would seek to pro­mote "con­cil­ia­to­ry talks" be­tween Pan­day and Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

On Fri­day, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal stat­ed, at the end of a meet­ing with his con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive, that he would sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar. Mooni­lal is a deputy UNC leader. Even with her cur­rent shoo-in as Op­po­si­tion Leader, some sup­port­ive MPs are said to be con­cerned about cer­tain as­pects of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ear­ly lead­er­ship, es­pe­cial­ly her nom­i­nal con­sul­ta­tion in nam­ing Jack Warn­er Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

For:

?Per­sad-Bisses­sar is al­so sup­port­ed by Jack Warn­er, Har­ry Par­tap, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, Nizam Baksh, Chan­dresh Shar­ma.

Against:

?She does not en­joy the sup­port of Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, Vas­ant Bharath, Kelvin Ram­nath, an ail­ing Dr Hamza Rafeeq and the Pan­day brood of Bas­deo, Sub­has and Mick­ela.