Ken Ali

??Dr Roodal Mooni­lal is a po­lit­i­cal sur­vivor of sorts. Mooni­lal was the on­ly mem­ber of the oth­er­wise-dec­i­mat­ed Bas­deo Pan­day slate to be elect­ed in the Jan­u­ary 24 Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion. Mooni­lal, Oropouche East Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, was elect­ed Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader. The Chair­man of Par­lia­ment's Pub­lic Ac­counts Com­mit­tee field­ed rel­e­vant ques­tions from the Sun­day Guardian.

Q: You sur­vived a po­lit­i­cal earth­quake on Jan­u­ary 24, you be­ing the on­ly can­di­date on the Pan­day slate to win your po­si­tion. How did that hap­pen?

A: It was al­ways go­ing to be a dif­fi­cult elec­tion giv­en the na­tion­al hype, the first-time chal­lenge to the founder and then undis­put­ed leader and the in­tro­duc­tion of na­tion­al cam­paign­ing in what was es­sen­tial­ly a small elec­tion in a pri­vate or­gan­i­sa­tion. But I am al­so a founder mem­ber and stal­wart with par­ty ex­pe­ri­ence in cen­tral and south Trinidad and I think in the end my po­lit­i­cal work and na­tion­al imag­ing via the Par­lia­ment Chan­nel as­sist­ed in giv­ing me an edge. But I am sad that oth­er good men and women from my slate did not make it, but that is democ­ra­cy and pol­i­tics.

Are you say­ing that bad men and women were elect­ed?

You start that! No not at all; I am not fa­mil­iar with some of my new col­leagues, but I know oth­ers and we must al­ways give a chance for all to per­form. I can­not pre-judge new mem­bers of the ex­ec­u­tive.

As the sole sur­vivor from the ri­val team, what has been your ex­pe­ri­ence so far on the ex­ec­u­tive?

Well, there was no need to wear a hel­met at the first meet­ing. Peo­ple for­get that al­though we were on dif­fer­ent slates, many of us know each oth­er from work­ing in the par­ty for sev­er­al years. While there are new faces, oth­ers have been around from some time.

The cam­paign was par­tic­u­lar­ly bit­ter and ad­ver­sar­i­al; a lot of harsh per­son­al com­ments were made, I dare say by you as well. Does this im­pede the heal­ing process?

No. I think, at the end of the day, we are all ma­tured politi­cians. We know of the na­ture of Caribbean pol­i­tics, the el­e­ments of ban­ter, pi­cong and plat­form rhetoric. Af­ter the cam­paign we need to put that be­hind us and work to­ward get­ting the UNC back in­to of­fice.

That is easy for you to say, but do you re­al­ly ex­pect peo­ple who were sub­ject­ed to deep per­son­al at­tacks to for­get?

It may take a longer time, but we must move for­ward and can­not linger on about what was said in the cam­paign.

What has been your ex­pe­ri­ence with the po­lit­i­cal leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­ing from her land­slide vic­to­ry over Bas­deo Pan­day?

Again, I re­mind you and our mem­bers that we have worked to­geth­er for more than 15 years in the par­ty, so we all know each oth­er. I have been in touch with her and will give ad­vice and as­sis­tance when called up­on. Our in­ter­ac­tions have al­ways been pleas­ant for the past 15 years; I don't think it will change now.

And the colour­ful Jack Warn­er! Some say he has too much pow­er in the UNC and threat­ens to cap­ture the base of the par­ty?

Mr Warn­er is in­deed a char­ac­ter; he is al­so start­ing his tenure as chair­man and I think we can on­ly judge him af­ter a rea­son­able pe­ri­od has elapsed. He has a method which is unique and can ruf­fle feath­ers and step on toes but the chal­lenge is to work with all types of man­agers.

But what about his un­due in­flu­ence?

It is dif­fi­cult for him not to in­flu­ence, but there is a leader and team around him that will make joint de­ci­sions.

What do you see are your pri­or­i­ties?

A deputy po­lit­i­cal leader is there to as­sist the po­lit­i­cal leader. Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar knows my skills, strengths and ca­pac­i­ty and will call up­on me to as­sist as she thinks fit. But I do have a strong com­mit­ment to mat­ters of pol­i­cy for­mu­la­tion, par­lia­men­tary af­fairs and op­po­si­tion uni­ty.

On this mat­ter of Op­po­si­tion uni­ty, do you think the events of Jan­u­ary 24 will lead to the col­lapse of the COP and Win­ston Dook­er­an?

There has been a lot of spec­u­la­tion about this. I imag­ine our fiends at the COP op­er­a­tions cen­tre must al­so be con­cerned, but I think Mr Dook­er­an has cor­doned off his core sup­port base, or his third tribe, suf­fi­cient­ly to en­sure that the COP has its feet in the door to uni­ty. But I agree that we need first to arrange a frame­work for uni­ty in the UNC be­fore we open that door.

But time is of the essence. The lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion could be 90 days away.

Yes, but we can­not rush in­to uni­ty talks or coali­tion-build­ing if we our­selves are not clear on our ob­jec­tives, our struc­ture and frame­work for such a joint en­ter­prise. The wider so­ci­ety would not trust us if they per­ceive that uni­ty talks are re­al­ly about snatch­ing pow­er and of­fice from the PNM and each oth­er.

Do you see a re­peat of 1983, when a unit­ed op­po­si­tion force beat the PNM in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion?

It is hard to com­pare. The PNM has since then gar­risoned lo­cal­i­ties to en­sure po­lit­i­cal sur­vival, and this is a big­ger chal­lenge.

Do you mean vot­er padding through hous­ing projects?

Yes, the de­mo­graph­ics have changed since 1983, so there is a need to re-look ap­proach­es.

What do you think of Ms Per­sad-Bisses­sar's role so far?

It is quite ear­ly to say, but she has chal­lenges giv­en the af­ter­math of Jan­u­ary 24, 2010. She has ap­peared to be pa­tient, which in pol­i­tics is not on­ly a virtue but a weapon.

Is the in­de­fati­ga­ble Bas­deo Pan­day part of that chal­lenge?

(Laughs loud­ly). He has al­ways been a chal­lenge in pol­i­tics since 1966.

Don't es­cape the is­sue–what do you think of his con­tin­ued grasp­ing for pow­er and of­fice?

I don't think you can re­duce it to such sim­plis­tic machi­na­tions. For a gen­er­a­tion, Mr Pan­day rep­re­sent­ed the hopes and as­pi­ra­tions of a large sec­tion of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty. Notwith­stand­ing Jan­u­ary 24, 2010, he still has a role to play in pol­i­tics. Al­so, we seem to for­get that the UNC, un­like the PNM, is not ide­o­log­i­cal­ly mono­lith­ic. The UNC has sev­er­al in­tel­lec­tu­al wings root­ed in var­i­ous philoso­phies about how to gov­ern; it is a dy­nam­ic as­so­ci­a­tion. This is a po­lit­i­cal strength but al­so an elec­toral weak­ness. In an el­e­men­tary way, it is ULF, ONR, DLP and Tapia all in one. Our po­lit­i­cal base or core mem­ber­ship is al­so high­ly strat­i­fied.

All of this sounds like good aca­d­e­m­ic the­o­ry for UWI, but should Mr Pan­day hold on af­ter he lost by a land­slide?

That is a sim­ple ques­tion. ?You are an­ti-aca­d­e­m­ic now, Ken? Any­way, to get to your point, Mr Pan­day has to re­assess his po­lit­i­cal role and ad­just to the new dis­pen­sa­tion and a new role for him­self. He should not be pushed in­to any po­si­tion.

But how long can he take? Mr Pan­day is now say­ing the elec­tion, of which he was in charge, was fraud­u­lent.

Well, we have gone on­ly two weeks af­ter the elec­tion. I agree that there are con­cerns about the process and the cards found. It is a mat­ter the par­ty has al­ready raised and will ad­dress fur­ther in the com­ing days. I think the mem­bers and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty must re­mem­ber that we are still in a tran­si­tion mode.

You seem to be at pains to say plain­ly that Mr Pan­day must go. He lost ten to one. Why the hes­i­tan­cy?

It is not that sim­ple; we need to have con­ti­nu­ity and a unit­ed team even if he is no longer Op­po­si­tion Leader. Sum­mar­i­ly dis­miss­ing Mr Pan­day is a sure way to fur­ther frac­ture and di­vide the Op­po­si­tion.

Why did you not walk out with Mr Pan­day last Wednes­day when he said the par­ty was un­de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, af­ter Har­ry Par­tap, of all peo­ple, asked him to ex­it the meet­ing?

As you know, I have nev­er dis­cussed the par­ty busi­ness in the me­dia and I don't in­tend to do that now.