Gail Alexan­der

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) must show it is open to change in the same way it wants vot­ers to change from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and put Ra­mona Ram­di­al back as the Cou­va North can­di­date.

A group rep­re­sent­ing a move­ment of UNC’s Cou­va North con­stituents has voiced this call. Spokesman Ra­jesh Rat­tan says they’re seek­ing a meet­ing with par­ty leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to dis­cuss their ap­peal.

Rat­tan added yes­ter­day, “This is a per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for the screen­ing team to demon­strate to the coun­try the prin­ci­ple that UNC is ca­pa­ble of change in the same way our par­ty’s call­ing for vot­ers to change the PNM. We should live the change we want peo­ple to make.”

“Our screen­ing team should lis­ten and re­spect the voic­es of the peo­ple who our leader says is the voice of God. The voic­es of Cou­va North want Ra­mona Ram­di­al. We know our leader isn’t be­yond change.”

Ram­di­al was dropped from the UNC’s can­di­date line­up and re­placed by Ravi Rati­ram. Oth­er can­di­date changes in about five UNC safe seats have al­so caused sim­mer­ing feel­ings. Some con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives have is­sued state­ments sup­port­ing the can­di­dates they’ve re­ceived. But some con­stituen­cies where can­di­date changes haven’t been wel­comed, haven’t done so and not all out­go­ing MPs in those ar­eas have done walk­a­bouts with their re­place­ment.

Last Fri­day there was a clash be­tween Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la elec­tion team ac­tivists/coun­cil­lors and area can­di­date Rai Rag­bir.

The team called for a meet­ing with the lead­er­ship to ap­peal to re­move Rag­bir but didn’t get it. Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, UNC chair­man Pe­ter Kan­hai told Guardian Me­dia all can­di­dates must re­spect ac­tivist teams work­ing for elec­tions as they’re the UNC’s “back­bone.”

Fol­low­ing yes­ter­day’s Guardian Me­dia re­port on the Cu­mu­to clash, the ac­tivists had a meet­ing with the lead­er­ship yes­ter­day.

But in Cou­va North, chair­man Or­lan­do Nages­sar re­cent­ly said his ex­ec­u­tive nev­er got a rea­son from UNC’s screen­ing team why Ram­di­al was re­moved.

Last Sun­day res­i­dents of Lime­head Road and en­vi­rons demon­strat­ed call­ing for Ram­di­al to be re­turned and Bank Vil­lage and Or­ange Val­ley res­i­dents al­so voiced the call.

Yes­ter­day in the lat­est ac­tion to get Ram­di­al back, Rat­tan added, “We have noth­ing against the new can­di­date. We’re all UNC. But we’re cer­tain a role can be found else­where for him. Cou­va North con­stituents con­sid­er Mrs Ram­di­al, fam­i­ly. She’s de­liv­ered and stands up for them and peo­ple want the fam­i­ly to re­main to­geth­er.”

“Nom­i­na­tion day is Fri­day. Changes could be made. We’re ask­ing our leader to be the in­stru­ment of change and cor­rect the screen­ing team’s mis­take.”

The group was seek­ing a meet­ing with Per­sad-Bisses­sar by to­day to show why re­con­sid­er­a­tion of Ram­di­al’s can­di­da­cy is es­sen­tial to UNC’s cam­paign and win­ning the up­com­ing elec­tion.

“We un­der­stand such a move is un­prece­dent­ed in the UNC or any oth­er par­ty but our leader is a cham­pi­on of un­prece­dent­ed change. We’re plead­ing for this short meet­ing in which she can be T&T’s first po­lit­i­cal leader to al­low con­stituents to play a more ac­tive role-se­lec­tion of a can­di­date. She can be the first to cham­pi­on the evo­lu­tion of pol­i­tics. This un­prece­dent­ed change in the pol­i­tics can start in the UNC.”