Yvonne Ba­boolal

Armed with a mis­sion to "re­store the UNC to its pris­tine glo­ry," oust­ed leader and for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day may con­test a post on the ex­ec­u­tive in the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tions next Jan­u­ary."Yes I will, if I can be as­sured the vot­ing process will not be rigged and will be free, fair and open. The elec­tions are usu­al­ly rigged," Pan­day told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. "If I de­cide to con­test the elec­tions, it will be to re­turn the par­ty to its pris­tine glo­ry," he added.

He made the dis­clo­sure on the TBC Ra­dio Net­work's Aakash Vani morn­ing talk show, Pan­chay­at, this week and lat­er to the T&T Guardian.Pan­day was re­spond­ing to ques­tions about ru­mours he planned to con­test the post of UNC chair­man with a slate sup­port­ed by Vas­ant Bharath, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter.He did not give a di­rect an­swer but on­ly con­firmed he would con­test the elec­tions if he was sure the process was fair.

There have al­so been un­con­firmed ru­mours about a pos­si­ble al­liance be­tween Pan­day and the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) led by Jack Warn­er.Asked about that, Pan­day skirt­ed the is­sue, say­ing it was not a ques­tion of an al­liance, since he was ad­vo­cat­ing for change in the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem.Re­fer­ring to a sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion un­der a re­formed Con­sti­tu­tion, he said:"There will be no need for a coali­tion. The ILP will put up their can­di­dates and get their seats and the oth­er par­ties will do the same."

Pan­day's rev­e­la­tions come in the wake of loss­es by the UNC in four elec­tions this year, the pull­out from the coali­tion gov­ern­ment of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), rifts in the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) and the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer UNC chair­man Warn­er, who formed his own ri­val par­ty.Asked if he fore­saw any fur­ther break­aways from the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, Pan­day said no "be­cause those who are there do not want to lose any ben­e­fits."

Bharath could not be reached and the T&T Guardian was in­formed he was out of the coun­try. UNC deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, who is re­port­ed­ly con­test­ing the po­si­tion again in the up­com­ing elec­tions, was asked how he felt about Pan­day re­turn­ing to the UNC and to pol­i­tics and if the par­ty would ac­cept him."He has not left the po­lit­i­cal are­na. He nev­er left the UNC. So it is not a ques­tion of ac­cept­ing him or not," he said.

Pan­day, told that late­ly he has been seen in dis­cus­sions with politi­cians he once had pub­lic dis­agree­ments with, and asked if he was ral­ly­ing the old guard to make a po­lit­i­cal come­back to the UNC's front­line, al­so said:"I have nev­er left the po­lit­i­cal are­na."He has be­gun an ad­vo­ca­cy cam­paign for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form and has al­ready in­vit­ed ILP leader Warn­er to talks.

He said he planned to in­vite for­mer UNC at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Ma­haraj, who broke away from the par­ty and formed Team Uni­ty, and Trevor Su­dama, who al­so re­signed.For­mer UNC min­is­ter John Humphrey is al­so on Pan­day's list as well as COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har and MSJ leader David Ab­du­lah."I am in­ter­view­ing all with­out favour, mal­ice or ill will. I am re­al­ly con­cerned about con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form," he said.

Dur­ing their first meet­ing re­cent­ly af­ter al­most five years, Warn­er called on Pan­day to re­turn to ac­tive pol­i­tics.Warn­er, in 2008, an­nounced he was on a mis­sion to oust Pan­day as UNC leader and suc­ceed­ed in 2010 when he was re­placed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.Pan­day said as he nev­er left the po­lit­i­cal are­na, there was no ques­tion of com­ing back.He added: "I had giv­en up on elec­toral pol­i­tics but I am still in­volved in pol­i­tics, in try­ing to make a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life for the coun­try.

"I in­vit­ed Warn­er (to the con­sti­tu­tion re­form talks) be­cause he and oth­ers are peo­ple who are in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem."Asked his thoughts on the fu­ture of the ILP, Pan­day said a third par­ty could not sur­vive un­der the two-par­ty po­lit­i­cal sys­tem.He dis­missed the Gov­ern­ment's in­tro­duc­tion of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions process as just a "de­vice for some oth­er pur­pose. It was a de­vice to nom­i­nate al­der­men af­ter the elec­tions."

ILP in­ter­im chair­man Robin Mon­tano, asked if the par­ty would ac­cept Pan­day if he de­cid­ed to re­turn to ac­tive pol­i­tics, said: "The an­swer is yes, most cer­tain­ly. His knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence as a states­man would be most ben­e­fi­cial to any­body."