Richard Lord

For­mer St Au­gus­tine MP John Humphrey is ad­vis­ing Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day to not on­ly re­lin­quish his of­fice, but to re­sign as MP for Cou­va North. In a brief in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Humphrey said he had of­fered the ad­vice to Pan­day, af­ter his mas­sive de­feat as po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty in na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions on Sun­day. Pan­day was vot­ed out as po­lit­i­cal leader, but re­mains as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion. Humphrey said Pan­day, who has been an MP for more than 33 years, should now move to write a book about his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. Humphrey said Pan­day's de­ci­sion to not pro­ceed with the book was a bad de­ci­sion. He said the coun­try could ben­e­fit tremen­dous­ly from the ex­pe­ri­ences of the for­mer prime min­is­ter, and he should pro­ceed to record it for the ben­e­fit of the en­tire na­tion and the world.

Pan­day had said sev­er­al years ago that when he re­signed from ac­tive pol­i­tics, he would write a book about his ca­reer in pol­i­tics. Mean­while, Pan­day is in­sist­ing that he will con­tin­ue as Op­po­si­tion Leader un­less and un­til the ma­jor­i­ty of Op­po­si­tion MPs write to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, ex­press­ing their lack of con­fi­dence in him (Pan­day). MPs loy­al to Pan­day said the is­sue of ap­point­ing a new Op­po­si­tion Leader did not arise and it was a non-is­sue. New chair­man of the UNC, Jack Warn­er, in­sist­ed that Pan­day re­sign as Op­po­si­tion Leader. Af­ter his elec­tion vic­to­ry on Sun­day night, Warn­er said if Pan­day re­fused to give up the po­si­tion vol­un­tar­i­ly, a bat­tle may be waged against him to force him to re­lin­quish the post.