Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

As Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar moves clos­er to re­plac­ing Bas­deo Pan­day as Op­po­si­tion Leader, Pan­day's broth­er, Sub­has, has agreed to chair a com­mit­tee that would make the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC vic­to­ri­ous in a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. "At the end of the day, all of us, we are in the same par­ty and I do not want to com­mit my­self at the ex­pense of my col­leagues," Sub­has said in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day. He said: "If it comes to the worst and the heat gets too hot, I will nev­er fight my fam­i­ly in pub­lic. I would rather walk away. And I told every­body that. If I had to fight my broth­er in pub­lic, I would walk away." Sub­has was ap­point­ed the chair­man of the UNC's par­lia­men­tary cau­cus com­mit­tee that was re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing strate­gies to make the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led UNC suc­cess­ful for lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tions, which were re­quired to be held in less than sev­en months.

He has been shar­ing an es­tranged re­la­tion­ship with Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she de­feat­ed his broth­er, Bas­deo Pan­day, for the po­si­tion of UNC po­lit­i­cal leader. Per­sad-Bisses­sar has al­so en­gaged in a bid to re­place Pan­day as Op­po­si­tion Leader af­ter Car­ni­val. Sub­has raised con­cerns about the method that Per­sad-Bisses­sar was us­ing to so­lic­it sup­port from the ma­jor­i­ty of Op­po­si­tion UNC MPs to per­suade them to sign a let­ter to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards re­quest­ing that she be made Op­po­si­tion Leader. "She (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) is say­ing the she on­ly needs the sup­port of one more mem­ber but what hap­pens if she does get it? Will she iso­late the oth­er sev­en MPs (in the Op­po­si­tion)? Would her eight be in one cor­ner and the oth­er sev­en in an­oth­er cor­ner?" Sub­has asked.

"If you are say­ing that you just need one more MP to give you sup­port, then you are send­ing the mes­sage that you on­ly want one more per­son to be loy­al to you and the oth­ers do not count. Would they be os­tracised?" He re­it­er­at­ed that as UNC po­lit­i­cal leader, Per­sad-Biss­esar, should have called a meet­ing of all Op­po­si­tion UNC MPs and en­gaged them in a round-ta­ble dis­cus­sion about her in­ter­ests to as­sume the po­si­tion of Op­po­si­tion Leader. "This kind of thing of call­ing peo­ple one by one try­ing to get a spe­cif­ic num­ber–which is eight–of MPs to sign a let­ter that gives the sup­port that she needs, what hap­pens to the oth­er sev­en?" Sub­has asked.