Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

Jack Warn­er is pre­pared to bow out of pol­i­tics if he is not elect­ed chair­man of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to­day. He is go­ing up against his ri­val, St Au­gus­tine MP Vas­ant Bharath for the post. Warn­er is con­fi­dent of win­ning. The in­ter­nal elec­tions has tak­en on a bit­ter twist with Op­po­si­tion Leader Bas­deo Pan­day tak­ing se­ri­ous jabs at Siparia MP Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Warn­er. Warn­er who has in­vest­ed mil­lions of dol­lars in the UNC has been adamant about change in lead­er­ship. A mem­ber of the Ram­jack fac­tor, which cham­pi­oned the need for change, Warn­er lat­er threw his weight be­hind Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He has now be­come the re­cip­i­ent of some bit­ter re­marks by Pan­day. Ad­mit­ting he is hurt by some of the in­sults Warn­er said, "I came in­to pol­i­tics to help peo­ple. If I can­not help, then it makes ab­solute­ly no sense I am here. For years I was sub­ject­ed to racial treat­ment by some mem­bers of the UNC...but to know the leader turn­ing on me af­ter every­thing, that is very deep." Warn­er, who will cel­e­brate his 67 birth­day on Tues­day, said he will spend his day re­flect­ing on plans for the fu­ture.

Warn­er UNC time­line

1. 1997-spe­cial ad­vis­er to the UNC

2. 2002-Be­came a mem­ber of the UNC when the par­ty lost the gen­er­al elec­tion to the PNM.

3. Post a $750,000 bail for Oma Pan­day on a bribery charge al­leg­ing that on De­cem­ber 30, 1998 she aid­ed and abet­ted her hus­band in cor­rupt­ly re­ceiv­ing from Car­los John and Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh �25,000 (over $250,000) as an in­duce­ment or re­ward for the said Bas­deo Pan­day favour­ing the in­ter­est of North­ern Con­struc­tion Ltd (NCL) in re­la­tion to the Con­struc­tion Pack­age III at the new ter­mi­nal de­vel­op­ment project at Pi­ar­co Air­port.

2007

1. No­vem­ber 5, Warn­er won his Ch­agua­nas West seat and was elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

2. Warn­er ap­pealed to for­mer UNC politi­cians who bro­ken ranks from the par­ty to re­turn to the fold to over­throw the Gov­ern­ment.

3. He was giv­en the man­tle to lead the UNC Al­liance.

4. Fires Roy Au­gus­tus from the Warn­er Group of Com­pa­nies for of­fen­sive lan­guage used against him.

2008

1. Warn­er holds UNC dol­lar fete.

2. Re­peats call for in­ter­nal elec­tions and joins with Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj to form the Ram­jack fac­tion, which has been lead­ing a move­ment for change in the par­ty.

3. Ram­jack fac­tion blocked from en­ter­ing Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va for the par­ty's na­tion­al con­gress.

4. Ma­yaro MP Win­ston Pe­ters joins Ram­jack fac­tion.

5. Ram­jack fac­tion moves to the back bench in Par­lia­ment.

6. Warn­er is in­stru­men­tal in re­mov­ing for­mer Ch­agua­nas May­or Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan from of­fice, mak­ing way for new May­or, Natasha Navas.

7. He threat­ens to re­move Pan­day as UNC leader next.

8. Claims he spent $3 mil­lion on Pan­day in 2007.

9. Threat­ened to sue Pan­day for de­fam­ing his char­ac­ter for slan­der, but pleas from mem­bers caus­es a change of heart.

10. Ram­jack fac­tion dis­solved and Warn­er throws his sup­port be­hind his for­mer ri­val, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

2010

1. Con­tend­ing the post of chair­man in the UNC.

2. Chas­tis­es Ma­haraj on the cam­paign trail.

Jack cel­e­brates 67 on Tues­day�

1. 1946- Born on Jan­u­ary 26 in Rio Claro, south Trinidad.

2. 1969-Bach­e­lor of Arts De­gree, His­to­ry.

3. 1970-Post Grad­u­ate Diplo­ma in In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.

4. 1970-1983-His­to­ry teacher, Poly­tech­nic In­sti­tute, Port-of-Spain.

5. 1978-1983-Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union.

6. 1984-Pres­i­dent of the Caribbean Foot­ball Union to date.

7. 1990-Warn­er was elect­ed as pres­i­dent of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of North, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca, and Caribbean As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball and has been re-elect­ed on every oc­ca­sion to date. In that same year Warn­er was al­so elect­ed as vice pres­i­dent of the pres­ti­gious Fed­er­a­tion of In­ter­na­tion­al Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (FI­FA) and has suc­cess­ful­ly be re-elect­ed to date. His reign did not stop there as he was al­so elect­ed as spe­cial ad­vis­er to the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion a po­si­tion he still holds.

8. 1999-Found­ed the Pro­fes­sion­al Foot­ball League in T&T.

Maid­en con­tri­bu­tion

The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives–Fri­day Jan­u­ary 18, 2008. Mo­tion to adopt the First Re­port (2007/2008) of the Fi­nance Com­mit­tee of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.