The findings of Nacta's ongoing tracking survey on the UNC's internal elections has revealed that Kamla Persad-Bissessar is expected to win the party's leadership by a landslide victory based on support she has been receiving from non-UNC supporters. This has created some measure of anxiety among members, who fear that the party could be dissolved should the Siparia MP beat the incumbent leader Basdeo Panday, who is facing his biggest challenge in this month's election. Persad-Bissessar, the poll stated, poses a bigger threat in deposing Bas as a result of the strong support she has garnered from non-UNC supporters who have succeeded in obtaining membership in the UNC with the defined goal of forcefully retiring Panday and Ramesh from the country's politics.
The poll finds that individuals who hold dual membership in UNC and COP account for nearly half of Kamla's support for the UNC leadership post. These numbers are likely to rise as pending applications from individuals who say they are COP affiliates and showing preference for Kamla, are processed and given the right to vote. The findings are obtained from interviews of 478 individuals who described themselves as supporters of UNC or COP and also members of UNC. "Kamla is expected to triumph with a landslide victory because the poll finds that COP supporters are highly motivated to come out and vote Kamla and the COP machinery has gone into high gear to elect Kamla as leader of the UNC," the poll stated.�While Persad-Bissessar has wide appeal among COP members, the polled explained she lacked political savvy and toughness to engage the PNM in a general election. The poll found deep fears among UNC supporters that Panday was likely to go down in defeat, leading to the dissolution of the UNC and the subsequent neglect of its supporters.
The threat to Panday's leadership comes from the same element of NAR supporters, now transmigrated into the COP, that expelled Panday and his ULF base. The complaint among UNC supporters is that elements of the COP are seeking to settle political scores by ousting Panday as leader through a plot of registering their members in the UNC to vote against Bas. Party loyalists complained about a plot by UNC nemeses to take over the party's base and use it to capture political power from which UNC supporters are not likely to be beneficiaries because of the expected absence of strong leaders to advocate for their interests. This has triggered UNC loyalists to complain that while COP did not want to unite with the UNC to win the 2007 elections, they now want to determine the UNC's leader. Contacted yesterday, COP's political leader Winston Dookeran refused to comment on the issue, while neither Persad-Bissessar, Panday nor Maharaj could not be reached for comment.