Siparia MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pro­posed nine ini­tia­tives to strength­en the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC). She said the UNC first need­ed to be re-brand­ed as the gov­ern­ment of choice and brand­ed as the in­tel­li­gent gov­ern­ment that would make in­tel­li­gent, con­sen­sus-dri­ven de­ci­sions that favoured the peo­ple.

An­oth­er ini­tia­tive that Per­sad-Bisses­sar put for­ward was the repo­si­tion­ing of the par­ty "as a par­ty for all, em­brac­ing all, serv­ing all, the par­ty of the fu­ture." Per­sad-Bisses­sar is con­test­ing the post of po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC in the Jan­u­ary 24 par­ty elec­tions. Speak­ing at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing at St He­le­na Hin­du School last night, she em­pha­sised that "bridges have to be built and lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tions opened among the op­po­si­tion groups" for de­feat of the Patrick Man­ning regime.

"Not for the love of Kam­la, Mr (Bas­deo ) Pan­day or Mr (Ramesh) Ma­haraj but for the love of the coun­try," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "It is al­so wide­ly ac­cept­ed that the crit­i­cal cri­te­ri­on in the se­lec­tion of the po­lit­i­cal leader in the present cir­cum­stances has to do with the abil­i­ty to ef­fect uni­ty in or­der to de­feat the PNM. Both Mr Ma­haraj and Mr Pan­day seem to be weak in this area."