Gail Alexan­der

Over­tures have been made by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to some re­ject­ed UNC in­cum­bents who might be brought in­to a fu­ture UNC Gov­ern­ment via the Sen­ate or oth­er­wise, UNC deputy leader David Lee has said.

Lee made the point yes­ter­day when asked by Guardian Me­dia about the sad­ness, anger and con­cern by con­stituents in some ar­eas where MPs had been re­moved.

This in­clud­ed in the con­stituen­cies held by Ra­mona Ram­di­al, Fazal Karim, Bhoe Tewarie and Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein.

A group call­ing it­self “UNC Ca­bal” has al­so been rais­ing con­cerns about some new can­di­dates.

Lee said, “The leader al­ways said she would mar­ry ex­pe­ri­ence with youth and some of those MPs who did not get back their seat, there have been over­tures made, the leader reached out to them and some might be re­turn­ing ei­ther via the Sen­ate or oth­er ca­pac­i­ties. It’s not that they don’t have a role to play with the UNC Gov­ern­ment.”

He added: “They have a ma­jor role to play. We recog­nise that for the last five years all 18 MPs fought on be­half of the Op­po­si­tion…for ex­am­ple Dr Tewarie —even though he’s still young at over 70, by bring­ing him back via the Sen­ate he’ll have a more piv­otal role and spend more time in seek­ing to turn the coun­try around than have to work to run a con­stituen­cy.”

“The role of an MP is heavy and if you have to serve in Gov­ern­ment and be an MP the dou­ble re­spon­si­bil­i­ties are huge,” he said.

Lee added that was the rea­son for plac­ing some “young ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple like Arnold Ram (who re­placed Tewarie in Ca­roni Cen­tral) in seats.”

He said Ram was 37 years and lives in the con­stituen­cy.

Lee added, “This is not the end of the line for them (MPs), the leader told them —in­clud­ing Karim—they will play a role in the next UNC Gov­ern­ment. She is a car­ing leader and will take care of all MPs.”