Fran­cis Joseph

In the wake of mount­ing ten­sions with­in the Op­po­si­tion UNC-A, Chief Whip Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj has again called for in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions and a suc­ces­sor to be ap­point­ed to re­place the age­ing po­lit­i­cal leader, Bas­deo Pan­day, if the par­ty is to get back in­to gov­ern­ment.

In a let­ter sent on Fri­day to Pan­day, and copied to all UNC-A MPs and ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, Ma­haraj told Pan­day that he should con­cen­trate on the is­sues af­fect­ing the coun­try, rather than look­ing at "in­dis­ci­pline and the front bench and back bench."

At Fri­day's sit­ting of Par­lia­ment, Ma­haraj and Ch­agua­nas West MP, Jack Warn­er, did not speak to Pan­day. This was af­ter last month's call by Warn­er for in­ter­nal elec­tions with­in the UNC-A.

Ma­haraj, in his let­ter, point­ed out to his po­lit­i­cal leader that he (Pan­day) had no prob­lem with the chief whip over the last par­lia­men­tary ses­sion, so he (Ma­haraj) found it strange that his com­pe­tence and ef­fi­cien­cy as chief whip in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives were be­ing called in­to ques­tion.

Ma­haraj stat­ed that at last Wednes­day's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus of the par­ty at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va, Pan­day made state­ments which seemed to cast un­favourable re­flec­tion and even as­per­sions on the com­pen­tence and/or ef­fi­cien­cy in the man­ner in which Ma­haraj dis­charged his func­tions as chief whip.

"I wish to re­mind you that in the month of No­vem­ber 2008, a spe­cial cau­cus meet­ing was held by me for mem­bers to ex­press views on the man­age­ment of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives," he stat­ed. "This spe­cial cau­cus meet­ing was fixed by me af­ter two mem­bers ex­pressed views which re­flect­ed neg­a­tive­ly on my ef­fi­cien­cy in man­ag­ing the Par­lia­ment. "You were present dur­ing this spe­cial cau­cus meet­ing and you wit­nessed the con­tri­bu­tions made by these two mem­bers.

"You would have al­so wit­nessed that there was a gen­er­al con­sen­sus among the oth­er mem­bers that there was no ba­sis for the al­le­ga­tions made by the two mem­bers."

In his let­ter, Ma­haraj said it was clear that the Op­po­si­tion per­formed com­pe­tent­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly dur­ing the first ses­sion of Par­lia­ment.

The Tabaquite MP point­ed out that at the spe­cial cau­cus meet­ing, Pan­day did not ex­press any ad­verse views about the man­age­ment or the per­for­mance of the Op­po­si­tion in Par­lia­ment.

"At none of those meet­ings you ex­pressed any con­cerns about the ab­sence from Par­lia­ment by mem­bers," Ma­haraj said in his let­ter.

"The ques­tion there­fore is that why all of a sud­den pub­lic re­flec­tions on the com­pe­tence of mem­bers are be­ing made by you, as a ma­jor par­ty po­lit­i­cal event.

"Mr Pan­day, I humbly re­quest, that you con­sid­er the ma­jor is­sues fac­ing the coun­try, the height which the Op­po­si­tion reached over the last year in Par­lia­ment, the dai­ly suf­fer­ing of our peo­ple in re­spect of crime, pover­ty, pen­sion, dengue, in­ad­e­quate health ser­vices, traf­fic con­ges­tion, bad roads, poor drainage, so many oth­er de­pri­va­tions of the peo­ple, chal­lenges to the well-be­ing of the cit­i­zens of our coun­try and the great op­por­tu­ni­ty the par­ty has to win a gen­er­al elec­tion.

"This can on­ly be achieved if you take steps to lis­ten to the cries of the mem­ber­ship and the views of the pop­u­la­tion in or­der to place the par­ty in a po­si­tion that it will be the ve­hi­cle to tru­ly unite the coun­try against the PNM.

"It is time that the mem­ber­ship deals with the is­sue of con­tin­ued lead­er­ship and even­tu­al suc­ces­sion in the par­ty. The Op­po­si­tion can­not win a gen­er­al elec­tion un­less lead­er­ship is­sues are set­tled by the mem­ber­ship.

"In or­der to do so, an in­ter­nal elec­tion of the par­ty will be the nat­ur­al medi­um through which the is­sue of le­git­i­ma­cy of the lead­er­ship and of the ex­ec­u­tive can be achieved.

"You, as leader, have a du­ty to en­sure that such elec­tions are held and that the elec­tion process is open, trans­par­ent and fair.

"In this way, the par­ty mem­ber­ship and the pub­lic would have con­fi­dence that the leader and the ex­ec­u­tive elect­ed en­joy the con­fi­dence of the ma­jor­i­ty of the vot­ers.