UNC mem­ber and Ma­yaro, MP Rush­ton Paray will to­day make a strong call for his col­leagues at Par­lia­men­tary, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and all par­ty lev­els to join him in a call for the par­ty to hold Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions in June.

Al­ready, at least one Op­po­si­tion MP—Rod­ney Charles—sup­ports Paray’s call.

Paray will speak on the is­sue at a me­dia brief­ing at the Cou­va Cham­ber of Com­merce Hall.

It’s Paray’s lat­est sal­vo on the mat­ter since is­su­ing calls ear­li­er this month for the Na­tex elec­tion to be held. At that time, he al­so sig­nalled his in­ter­est in the UNC lead­er­ship post, say­ing, “I don’t think there’s a po­lice con­sta­ble who joins the TTPS who doesn’t want to be Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er.”

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s term is up in 2025. The Na­tex, which is loy­al to her, was elect­ed in 2022. Its term goes up to June.

Paray and Per­sad-Bisses­sar crossed swords re­cent­ly on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­mark that UNC mem­bers were treat­ed like “sheep” in the Bas­deo Pan­day pe­ri­od. Yes­ter­day, Paray said to­day he’ll be call­ing for Na­tex elec­tions for mem­bers to have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide if the cur­rent UNC’s Na­tex is the best ver­sion to fight the PNM.

“I’ve been asked by a wide cross-sec­tion of the mem­ber­ship to make a state­ment on this,” Paray ex­plained.

He said he has made and is again mak­ing a call to all his col­leagues to join him and his call for, “the UNC to up­hold the high­est tenets of democ­ra­cy and call the in­ter­nal elec­tion in June”.

His team in­cludes se­nior ac­tivists, coun­cil­lors, a for­mer op­po­si­tion leader’s of­fice em­ploy­ee and a for­mer cor­po­ra­tion head still ac­tive in his area. Paray al­so has the sup­port of a few MPs.

Na­pari­ma MP Charles sup­port­ed Paray’s call.

“Of course. The UNC, of which I’m a proud mem­ber for al­most 30 years, au­thored the one man, one vote for in­ter­nal elec­tions. We went to the Privy Coun­cil to en­sure Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion was held on time. I can­not see us not liv­ing up to the no­ble re­quire­ment to hold in­ter­nal elec­tions when they’re due,” Charles said.

UNC chair­man: Par­ty treats with mat­ters when due

UNC mem­bers and Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh, in whose con­stituen­cy Paray’s press con­fer­ence, is be­ing held, said they weren’t aware of it.

“I at­tend UNC press con­fer­ences and oth­er events sanc­tioned by the po­lit­i­cal leader and par­ty and I’m not aware of this one,” In­dars­ingh said yes­ter­day.

On whether he sup­port­ed hav­ing Na­tex polls by June, he said, “I’ve said I’m guid­ed by the de­ci­sions of the po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the par­ty’s Na­tex.”

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said of Paray’s call, “We’re in March and Na­tex polls are not yet due. The par­ty hasn’t had any kind of dis­cus­sion on in­ter­nal polls so I don’t un­der­stand the log­ic of call­ing for some­thing that’s not yet due.

“To make such a call now de­fies log­ic and com­mon sense, un­less he’s aware of a Na­tex de­ter­mi­na­tion that I, as chair­man, am not aware of. The UNC re­mains fo­cused on gen­er­al elec­tion prepa­ra­tions and will treat with any in­ter­nal mat­ter when they be­come due. All par­ties are fo­cused on gen­er­al elec­tion prepa­ra­tion. The UNC will not be left be­hind. Or dis­tract­ed,” Tan­coo said.

‘Fo­cus on gen­er­al elec­tion!’

Na­tex Cen­tral re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bar­ry Padarath mean­while said, “The Na­tex poll is a de­ci­sion for the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive as they put af­fairs in or­der for gen­er­al elec­tion. The leader and the ex­ec­u­tive have a man­date from the par­ty and their ac­tions are guid­ed by the par­ty Con­sti­tu­tion.”

He added, “Paray’s mis­guid­ed am­bi­tion doesn’t su­per­sede the ex­ec­u­tive’s de­ci­sions or UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion. I be­lieve the on­ly elec­tion the par­ty and UNC mem­bers are in­ter­est­ed in at this time is gen­er­al elec­tion.”

UNC sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al added, “There are many fac­tors to be con­sid­ered and many of them can’t be pre­dict­ed with ab­solute cer­tain­ty or con­trolled. I trust that those who have to make those de­ci­sions will make in­formed de­ci­sions when the time comes, I trust their judge­ment.

“Na­tex elec­tions or not, the pri­or­i­ty is on re­mov­ing the PNM from of­fice and res­cu­ing T&T. As the leader said, ‘laser-sharp fo­cus is need­ed’ and that’s where my fo­cus is.”