Ani­ka GUMBS-SAN­DI­FORD

De­throned from po­lit­i­cal of­fice, Bas­deo Pan­day is set and ready to take on a new bat­tle.Un­fazed by the changes that have fol­lowed his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer, the for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day is vow­ing not to give up the strug­gle to im­prove the lives of cit­i­zens.His newest ini­tia­tive is the launch of the Bas­deo Pan­day Foun­da­tion.

It is a non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tion geared to pro­tect­ing the rights of cit­i­zens, en­sur­ing they are treat­ed fair­ly by the Gov­ern­ment. "My fight is to en­sure peo­ple get what they are

en­ti­tled to. I do not want any­thing from any Gov­ern­ment," he said.

Speak­ing with Sun­day Guardian at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va last week, where the foun­da­tion has been set up, Pan­day said his re­moval from po­lit­i­cal of­fice has not de­terred him from serv­ing cit­i­zens.Proof of his new ven­ture was ev­i­dent dur­ing the in­ter­view as he was in­ter­rupt­ed with phone calls from peo­ple seek­ing as­sis­tance or re­dress in cer­tain mat­ters.

It's a move that may even take him to the walls of the court­room if the sit­u­a­tion aris­es, and Pan­day boasts of his readi­ness to don his le­gal gown. In fact, he is about to re­sume his ca­reer as an at­tor­ney with a prac­tice.The ob­jec­tive of the foun­da­tion, he said, is to im­prove the lives of peo­ple. "Any­body, any­where, of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, race, colour or creed, no mat­ter who you are you can come to this of­fice. I would try to help the best I can, hav­ing re­gard to the po­si­tion I am in.

The fight is free

!"My po­lit­i­cal work con­tin­ues just not in the cor­ri­dors of Par­lia­ment but out­side," the 77-year-old Pan­day said with a quizzi­cal look on his face.

Com­mit­ted to fight­ing for the peo­ple

In­sist­ing he has ab­solute­ly no in­ter­est in throw­ing his hat back in­to the po­lit­i­cal ring, Pan­day said as a for­mer prime min­is­ter he felt he had a role or du­ty to serve the peo­ple.The ju­ry is out on whether his foun­da­tion would be seen as a force to be reck­oned with against the Gov­ern­ment, but one thing is cer­tain–the for­mer leader is bent on not giv­ing up."I have no in­ter­est in ever hold­ing the of­fice of Prime Min­is­ter again. Pol­i­tics has more than one di­men­sion.

Peo­ple think elec­toral pol­i­tics has on­ly one di­men­sion and that is not true. I have no in­ter­est in elec­toral pol­i­tics any­more but I will cer­tain­ly car­ry on my po­lit­i­cal strug­gle out of Par­lia­ment. I prob­a­bly would be stronger out­side of Par­lia­ment than in."Pol­i­tics for me has al­so been a strug­gle to im­prove the qual­i­ty of life for peo­ple. That was my great­est achieve­ment when I was a trade union­ist.

Over 100,000 per­sons came out of grind­ing pover­ty in the sug­ar in­dus­try. That was an enor­mous achieve­ment for me and I am hap­py for that," the for­mer leader re­called, as he rem­i­nisced briefly on his pub­lic life.And, while Pan­day is bent on spend­ing his en­er­gies fight­ing for caus­es he deems un­just, he is al­so us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to catch up on things he failed to pur­sue while in of­fice.

"I love read­ing. I have read so many books that I have lost count. I am al­so busy on the har­mo­ni­um and learn­ing dif­fer­ent songs. When I was in school I did not like sci­ence sub­jects and would you be­lieve I have de­vel­oped a yearn­ing to learn chem­istry and physics now. I am very, very busy."

Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship yet to im­press

Re­frain­ing from com­ment­ing on po­lit­i­cal is­sues, Pan­day, how­ev­er, said he was lost for words over how the par­ty he fought to build had now be­come non-ex­is­tent. "The UNC no longer ex­ists in its form, it is there but the spir­it gone. Its fight, com­mit­ment and willpow­er have gone. The UNC is non-ex­is­tent. I thought when the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) went out of of­fice there would have been changes, un­for­tu­nate­ly I am still wait­ing for that change.

I have seen a lot of bad habits of the PNM be­ing adopt­ed. For, in­stance I am see­ing where they con­tin­ue to blame the PNM for every­thing; that is why peo­ple vot­ed them out of of­fice.

"Blam­ing the PNM does not solve any­thing. I am wait­ing for ac­tion, and quite frankly I am not see­ing any. I do not mean to be crit­i­cal but I am yet to see the change. I do not see any at­tempt to solve the prob­lems for the peo­ple. I just do not see the tenac­i­ty," Pan­day end­ed.