?Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) is look­ing for $12 mil­lion to fi­nance its 2010 elec­tion cam­paign.That's if the par­ty is con­test­ing all 41 seats alone. If they join forces with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), COP's chair­man of elec­tions Dr Navi Mu­radali say they will need a lit­tle more than $6 mil­lion, which would have to be gen­er­at­ed by its can­di­dates. Mu­radali could not say how much each can­di­date would have to raise, stat­ing that it de­pend­ed on the area they are con­test­ing. The lim­it each can­di­date can spend on cam­paign­ing is $50,000 Mu­radali said. "Peo­ple have com­mit­ted to fund the can­di­dates when the time is ready. Our can­di­dates will have every­thing they need to go out there and cam­paign. We are ready," Mu­radali as­sured.

The COP re­ceived 148,000 votes in the last gen­er­al elec­tion. Hav­ing spent $12 mil­lion in cam­paign­ing in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, COP was un­suc­cess­ful in cap­tur­ing one seat. Last year, deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har ad­mit­ted the par­ty had owed $2 mil­lion in debts in­curred dur­ing cam­paign­ing, which they in­tend­ed to re­pay by rais­ing funds. Of the $2 mil­lion, COP had owed the par­ty's di­rec­tor of mo­bil­i­sa­tion, Sadiq Baksh, $1 mil­lion, which he in­ject­ed. Asked on Fri­day if the par­ty had set­tled its out­stand­ing debts, Mu­radali said he was in no po­si­tion to say.

?UNC spent over $100M last year

Af­ter cap­tur­ing 16 of the 41 seats in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, the UNC in tal­ly­ing its cam­paign fig­ures ex­ceed­ed $100 mil­lion, a source said yes­ter­day.

The source said $70 mil­lion was spent by Fi­fa vice pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er, with the re­main­ing $30 mil­lion do­nat­ed by the gen­eros­i­ty of fi­nanciers, busi­ness­men and par­ty sup­port­ers.

Flash­back

?Weeks af­ter the No­vem­ber 5, 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion, COP's leader Win­ston Dook­er­an had claimed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly $480 mil­lion was re­port­ed­ly spent by the PNM and UNC to cam­paign.