?Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mem­bers who are loy­al to Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day say there is no va­can­cy for Pan­day's job.

At least three par­ty of­fi­cials said yes­ter­day that there was an agree­ment be­fore Sun­day's na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions for Pan­day to re­main as Op­po­si­tion Leader de­spite who was elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty. Siparia MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar emerged the win­ner with more than 13,000 votes, near­ly ten times more than the 1,359 votes that for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day re­ceived. The third can­di­date, Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, got just 729 votes.

"An agree­ment was reached be­fore the elec­tions that who­ev­er is elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader, Mr Pan­day would re­main as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion," a source con­firmed. An­oth­er source said he found it strange a cer­tain per­son was de­mand­ing that Pan­day should re­lin­quish the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader. The source added if the of­fi­cial want­ed Pan­day to re­lin­quish the po­si­tion, he should write a let­ter to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards ex­press­ing a de­sire to change the Op­po­si­tion Leader and have the re­quired num­ber of MPs in sup­port of the move.

New UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er said on Sun­day night that Pan­day should do the moral thing and re­lin­quish the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader and al­low Per­sad-Bisses­sar to per­form that role as well.