Yvonne Webb

His­to­ri­an Brins­ley Sama­roo be­lieves Bas­deo Pan­day is be­ing hound­ed out of the of­fice of Op­po­si­tion Leader and ad­vis­es those do­ing so to treat him with dig­ni­ty in light of the tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion he has made to the coun­try. Sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments were echoed by leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple Win­ston Dook­er­an. Both men were spe­cial­ly in­vit­ed guests at the com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 116th an­niver­sary of Founders' Day at their al­ma mater Na­pari­ma Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do, yes­ter­day. Both men have been po­lit­i­cal al­lies of Pan­day, hav­ing served with him in the NAR ad­min­is­tra­tion. Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of a lob­by for new­ly elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to al­so as­sume the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader, Dook­er­an in a sep­a­rate in­ter­view said there was no ur­gency.

"I don't think it is as im­por­tant an is­sue as the coun­try is mak­ing it out to be. I think Mr Pan­day needs a lit­tle time to ad­just to this new re­al­i­ty, that his po­lit­i­cal life has re­al­ly come to an end. "We have to give him some time to come to that re­al­i­ty be­cause he has played an im­por­tant role for 40 years in the pol­i­tics of this coun­try and we can af­ford him that time. In­evitably and per­haps short­er than we think, I'm sure the mat­ter would be re­solved," Dook­er­an said. Sama­roo, a for­mer Min­is­ter of De­cen­tral­i­sa­tion and Agri­cul­ture agreed. "Mr Pan­day has served this coun­try for a very long time and Mr Pan­day has made a very sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to the de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go. I think it is wrong. I think it is very un­fair to now all of a sud­den force him out, which is what, very un­for­tu­nate­ly, is hap­pen­ing," he said.

Sama­roo said, "One has to recog­nise the tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion that he has made and one has to ease him out very grad­u­al­ly and in a very dig­ni­fied and ho­n­ourable man­ner–not in the way it is be­ing done now, where every­body is hound­ing him and telling him to go and not re­mem­ber­ing the tremen­dous con­tri­bu­tion he has made to the de­vel­op­ment of T&T. I think that is im­por­tant." Sama­roo said there is prece­dent in the Par­lia­ment where two dif­fer­ent peo­ple hold­ing the po­si­tions of op­po­si­tion and po­lit­i­cal leader of the same par­ty have co-ex­ist­ed. "I don't think that is a re­al prob­lem. If Mr Pan­day con­tin­ues on as Op­po­si­tion Leader, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar would have all the more time to re­or­gan­ise the par­ty in the way she has in­di­cat­ed she wants to do." Dook­er­an who served as UNC po­lit­i­cal leader while Per­sad-Bisses­sar act­ed as Op­po­si­tion Leader in the ab­sence of Pan­day al­so ac­knowl­edge this could al­so hap­pen in the present sce­nario. "It is a mat­ter of sup­port," he said.