Richard Lord

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Bas­deo Pan­day is propos­ing that the con­sti­tu­tion be rad­i­cal­ly re­formed to al­low for an elect­ed pres­i­dent and peo­ple se­lect­ed by him to form the gov­ern­ment. Pan­day is in­sist­ing that Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment are not to be con­sid­ered for the posts of min­is­ters or ad­vis­ers. Speak­ing to more than 500 del­e­gates dur­ing yes­ter­day's na­tion­al con­gress of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) at Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va, Pan­day al­so re­newed his call for the first-past-the-post sys­tem of elec­tions to be re­placed by one of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion. Pan­day's pro­pos­al for con­sti­tu­tion re­form al­so calls for in­tro­duc­tion of a uni­cam­er­al Par­lia­ment, with be­tween 90 and 100 mem­bers. He said that sys­tem would al­low for the true sep­a­ra­tion of pow­ers.

Pan­day said un­der the ex­ist­ing sys­tem, Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning con­trolled both the ex­ec­u­tive and the leg­is­la­ture. Pan­day al­so spoke of the need for a new type of uni­ty ini­tia­tive to be im­ple­ment­ed. Say­ing that "noth­ing seems to be hap­pen­ing" with the re­cent calls for uni­ty among op­po­si­tion par­ties in T&T, Pan­day said a fresh move would be made to reach the grass roots in the coun­try. De­spite the pres­ence of Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader, Robert May­ers, Pan­day slammed the Win­ston Dook­er­an-led par­ty for its de­mands for uni­ty. "Can you imag­ine a po­lit­i­cal par­ty that failed to win a sin­gle seat in the last par­lia­men­tary elec­tions telling us in the UNC with 15 seats, more or less, that if we want uni­ty we must dis­solve the UNC and join them?

"That sug­ges­tion is not on­ly naive, provoca­tive and in­sult­ing (and), it al­so dis­plays a to­tal lack of un­der­stand­ing of the po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty. "For some to sug­gest that be­fore they will even sit down to dis­cuss uni­ty, the leader of an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty must com­mit hari kari (stom­ach cut­ting) be­fore there can be uni­ty is to be not on­ly equal­ly puerile, but rude and in­so­lent." Pan­day al­so said peo­ple should not be mis­led in­to be­liev­ing that acts of in­dis­ci­pline would be tol­er­at­ed in the par­ty. He said the UNC must nev­er be­come "a haven for in­ter­na­tion­al con­men or an av­enue for mon­ey laun­der­ing or for those who have made it a ca­reer of be­tray­ing this par­ty." Pan­day added: "Now that the bick­er­ing is over and peace and sta­bil­i­ty have re­turned to the UNC, we must em­bark on a mas­sive mo­bil­i­sa­tion of the par­ty."