Gail Alexan­der

The la­dy con­tin­ues.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will serve un­til the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tions and isn't run­ning from re­spon­si­bil­i­ty in any Gen­er­al Elec­tion elec­tion mis­takes - but she's al­lud­ed to the up­com­ing pe­ri­od as the "twi­light" of her po­lit­i­cal ca­reer.

"Af­ter care­ful thought, prayer and re­flec­tion, I have de­cid­ed to com­mit my­self to the lead­er­ship of the par­ty in and out­side of Par­lia­ment un­til the in­ter­nal elec­tion," Per­sad-Bisses­sar added yes­ter­day.

This was Per­sad-Bisses­sar's po­si­tion - re­leased via a state­ment - af­ter days of calls from peo­ple in­side and out­side the par­ty rec­om­mend­ing she step down in the wake of the par­ty's lat­est elec­tion de­feat to the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment.

Her state­ment came soon af­ter the Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion con­clud­ed the last of the five re­counts in St Joseph and con­firmed the PNM's 22-19 win stood.

In her state­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fi­cial­ly con­ced­ed de­feat, which she hadn't done on elec­tion night, say­ing, "Af­ter some days of re­flec­tion and mon­i­tor­ing of the progress of the elec­tion re­count process, I am sat­is­fied the peo­ple have spo­ken and that (PNM leader) Dr (Kei­th) Row­ley and his par­ty shall form the new Gov­ern­ment of T&T. I con­grat­u­late them and wish them the best."

She added, "I know many of you are feel­ing a sense of dis­ap­point­ment with the elec­tion re­sult. I, too, am dis­ap­point­ed with the elec­tion and I ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the re­sult. I share the grave con­cerns ex­pressed by many about the elec­tion ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and the need to strength­en the in­tegri­ty of the elec­toral process.

"Per­son­al­ly, I am dis­ap­point­ed with the re­sults but note the UNC was able to achieve gains in three of the key mar­gin­al seats, which may have giv­en us a chance at that ma­jor­i­ty, but those gains were in­suf­fi­cient."

Re­gard­ing her fu­ture, she said she had giv­en the last 25 years of her life in ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice to the coun­try.

"In this elec­tion, I in­vest­ed in the youth of T&T. We have a par­lia­men­tary team that is full of young, bril­liant, cre­ative minds. It is my du­ty to fa­cil­i­tate the de­vel­op­ment and trans­for­ma­tion that must take place in the UNC, with an eye on the fu­ture to en­sure the ba­ton for lead­er­ship is passed in­to strong and ca­pa­ble hands at the ap­pro­pri­ate time."

She added, "Some ob­servers have been rais­ing ques­tions about my po­lit­i­cal fu­ture and some are keen to see me ex­it the po­lit­i­cal land­scape. This is un­der­stand­able, as I have my­self queried whether I should re­sign. This is not an easy job.

"You must ac­cept re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for mis­takes made whether you were aware of them or not, whether you had any con­trol over them or not. And yes, some of them you make on your own – I lay no claim to in­fal­li­bil­i­ty. I ac­cept full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Hav­ing con­sult­ed with my col­leagues, it is clear that run­ning away is not an op­tion at this point in time. The UNC must have a de­gree of sta­bil­i­ty as it con­sol­i­dates and unites dur­ing the pe­ri­od of tran­si­tion, growth and trans­for­ma­tion."

She added, "Un­til such a time as our par­ty choos­es oth­er­wise, I will re­main their faith­ful cham­pi­on and ser­vant. It has al­ready been ex­plained that the UNC will hold sched­uled elec­tions for a po­lit­i­cal leader."