Fran­cis Joseph

Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the new po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), said last night she was more con­cerned about re­mov­ing Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning and "end the sad state of af­fairs in our coun­try." A day af­ter she won the post of po­lit­i­cal leader in the UNC's in­ter­nal elec­tions, the Siparia MP said a lot of em­pha­sis had been placed on who would con­tin­ue to hold the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader–her de­feat­ed gu­ru Bas­deo Pan­day, or her­self. As far as Per­sad-Bisses­sar was con­cerned that was the least of her wor­ries. She feels there are more im­por­tant is­sues con­fronting her as the leader of the Op­po­si­tion UNC. She added: "The in­ter­nal elec­tions of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress have just con­clud­ed and the mem­ber­ship has spo­ken em­phat­i­cal­ly about how they wish to see the way for­ward. "I would ex­pect that the Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment who al­so of­fered them­selves up as can­di­dates for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty, al­so would have heard the voice of the peo­ple."

She con­tin­ued: "My own task now is to be­gin the process of get­ting our par­ty ready to con­test and win the next gen­er­al elec­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go. "That is my goal.�Maybe what has been the prob­lem in the past is that we have been too pre­oc­cu­pied with who holds the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader. "My con­cern now is to re­move the per­son who cur­rent­ly holds the post of Prime Min­is­ter and end the sad state of af­fairs in our coun­try. "While I do not mean to di­min­ish the im­por­tance of hold­ing the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader, the ques­tion of whether the cur­rent UNC Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment will sup­port me or not for the post of Op­po­si­tion Leader, is one which must be posed to them," she added. In 2005, when Win­ston Dook­er­an was ap­point­ed po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC, Pan­day re­mained as Op­po­si­tion Leader. Dook­er­an was forced out and Pan­day took over as po­lit­i­cal leader.

His­to­ry seems to be re­peat­ing it­self as Pan­day, who has yet to con­cede de­feat in Sun­day elec­tions, in­tends to re­main as Op­po­si­tion Leader, thanks to MPs sit­ting in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. So far, it seems that Jack Warn­er, Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters, and Har­ry Par­tap, will sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be Op­po­si­tion Leader. In Pan­day's cor­ner are his broth­er Sub­has, daugh­ter Mick­ela, Vas­ant Bharath, Hamza Rafeeq, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, and Kelvin Ram­nath. It is un­sure how Nizam Baksh and Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj will vote.

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion

T&T Con­sti­tu­tion:

83(2) The Pres­i­dent shall, if the per­son con­cerned is will­ing to be ap­point­ed, ap­point as Leader of the Op­po­si­tion the mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who, in his judg­ment is best able to com­mand the sup­port of the great­est num­ber of mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who do not sup­port the Gov­ern­ment.

(4) Where in the judg­ment of the Pres­i­dent, the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is no longer the mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives best able to com­mand the sup­port of a ma­jor­i­ty of those mem­bers of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who do not sup­port the Gov­ern­ment, the Pres­i­dent shall re­voke the ap­point­ment of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion.

(6) Where the of­fice of Leader of the Op­po­si­tion is va­cant, whether be­cause there is no mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives so qual­i­fied for ap­point­ment or be­cause no one qual­i­fied for ap­point­ment is will­ing to be ap­point­ed, or be­cause the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion has re­signed his of­fice or for any oth­er rea­son, any pro­vi­sion in this Con­sti­tu­tion re­quir­ing con­sul­ta­tion with the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion shall, in so far as it re­quires such con­sul­ta­tion, be of no ef­fect.