Gail Alexan­der

UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day has ac­cused the UNC's new Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion of be­ing vin­dic­tive in choos­ing can­di­dates, af­ter all the MPs loy­al to Pan­day were re­moved from the UNC's elec­tion slate. Pan­day spoke af­ter yes­ter­day's an­nounce­ment of UNC's can­di­dates at Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va. The lead­er­ship held a meet­ing with nom­i­nees at 3 pm to an­nounce the can­di­dates. UNC sources said Per­sad-Bisses­sar chose peo­ple "she can de­pend up­on." In the process, all the MPs who sup­port­ed Pan­day in the Jan­u­ary 24 UNC in­ter­nal elec­tion were re­placed, in­clud­ing Pan­day's broth­er Sub­has in Princes Town North and his daugh­ter Mick­ela in Oropouche West. Pan­day's Cou­va North seat al­so went to school­teacher Ra­mona Ram­di­al. Pan­day said that did not mat­ter.

On the sit­u­a­tion re­gard­ing his daugh­ter, broth­er and oth­er col­leagues who were dropped, Pan­day said: "I ex­pect­ed that kind of vin­dic­tive­ness by the new ad­min­is­tra­tion to take place, so it has come as no sur­prise.

"What is very in­struc­tive is, if they are so vin­dic­tive now, if they get in­to pow­er, what will they do to those who did not vote for them?" he said. "That is a very wor­ri­some thing not just for UNC sup­port­ers but al­so for the coun­try–what they did there yes­ter­day was a to­tal act of vin­dic­tive­ness. "A lot of peo­ple have called to say they will not vote now be­cause of the at­ti­tude they are see­ing on dis­play–I think it is a very sad sit­u­a­tion. "I ex­pect­ed the vin­dic­tive­ness, but I didn't ex­pect that sort of re­ac­tion from peo­ple. But I sup­pose peo­ple are tak­ing note of the sit­u­a­tion. Peo­ple are not stu­pid, you know. They are very ob­ser­vant."

Pan­day said he has not de­cid­ed if to con­test Ch­agua­nas West be­cause he now more firm­ly be­lieves he may be of greater use to "the thou­sands of peo­ple who sup­port­ed us." Cou­va South Kelvin Ram­nath said: "I'm not sur­prised I didn't get through. I thought I didn't stand a chance. But I know a lot of oth­er nom­i­nees are up­set, I've just spo­ken to them. "Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit and Dave Per­sad who were al­so nom­i­nat­ed for my seat have fol­low­ers and they were not giv­en pri­or­i­ty so the camps are very un­hap­py," Ram­nath said. "I am es­pe­cial­ly sad for Mick­ela Pan­day. If the ex­ec­u­tive has a prob­lem with her fa­ther, they should not take it out on her. "The par­ty al­so ap­pears high­ly dis­or­gan­ised. Peo­ple don't have a say in this par­ty and par­ty groups are not func­tion­ing or be­ing heard so the ex­ec­u­tive alone is se­lect­ing can­di­dates.

"I fear there will be reper­cus­sions and peo­ple will vent their frus­tra­tion about the way the process was han­dled." Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj–re­placed by Su­ruj Ram­bachan–said that since the UNC man­age­ment had re­ject­ed his of­fer to be a can­di­date, he did not think the team need­ed his help with the new can­di­date. Ma­haraj, who said he would not con­test as an In­de­pen­dent, added that he in­tends to step back from po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty un­til af­ter the elec­tion. "I am still wait­ing to find out why the peo­ple of Tabaquite didn't re­ceive the ex­ist­ing MP as a can­di­date and what cri­te­ria was ap­plied that made Ram­bachan a bet­ter choice," he said. "They have not said whether hon­esty, in­tegri­ty and pas­sion for good gov­er­nance were used in can­di­date se­lec­tion.

"I sym­pa­thise with the plight of con­stituents who have ex­pressed their fears of in­jus­tice to me in re­cent weeks," Ma­haraj said, wish­ing Ram­bachan and the par­ty, luck. St Au­gus­tine Vas­ant Bharath, who was dropped to make way for COP's Prakash Ra­mad­har said there are still deep-seat­ed ri­val­ries and anger in the seat that ex­ist­ed from the 2007 elec­tion when COP and UNC com­pet­ed for votes. He said it was nec­es­sary for peo­ple to ex­plain the cur­rent arrange­ment to con­stituents since he said many peo­ple were still call­ing him with con­cerns and were con­fused about how the uni­ty arrange­ment would work. Ca­roni Cen­tral MP Hamza Rafeeq said while his con­stituen­cy would ini­tial­ly be dis­ap­point­ed at his re­moval, they may ral­ly around the UNC even­tu­al­ly. Stat­ing that the ob­jec­tive of the ex­er­cise was to re­move the PNM, Rafeeq said he would as­sist new can­di­date Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh if the lat­ter ap­proached him.