Gail Alexan­der

?Any­one in the UNC, who be­lieves he/she has a lot of sup­port for a po­si­tion, could test the wa­ters when the par­ty's elec­tion is held on Jan­u­ary 24, 2010, UNC chair­man Vas­ant Bharath said yes­ter­day. He was com­ment­ing on a call at Sun­day's con­gress for UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day to step down and let deputy Kam­la Per­sad Bisses­sar take over. Pan­day told the Con­gress the call was du­ly not­ed. When asked about it af­ter the Con­gress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was the view of one mem­ber and not the view of all.

She said the UNC was a democ­ra­cy and while she was sure she had some fans, she would have to speak to her con­stituen­cy about any such call. How­ev­er, she em­pha­sised the on­ly way to beat the PNM and for T&T to move for­ward was via uni­ty. Yes­ter­day vice chair­man Bharath said, "The call that was made, goes to show that the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process is be­ing ob­served stren­u­ous­ly in UNC. There's no fil­ter­ing process. Once you're a fi­nan­cial mem­ber you're al­lowed to say what­ev­er you wish - we don't try to shut any­one up."