Yvonne Webb

A hurt and dis­ap­point­ed Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan yes­ter­day opt­ed to bow out of the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion race.

The in­cum­bent Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do West be­came the sec­ond found­ing mem­ber of the COP to bow out of the elec­tion race, fol­low­ing for­mer leader Win­ston Dook­er­an, who an­nounced his in­ten­tion last month not to seek re-elec­tion.

Seep­er­sad-Bachan's de­ci­sion comes af­ter a long con­tentious re­la­tion­ship with both her leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, with whom she tus­sled for lead­er­ship, and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, with whom she crossed swords be­cause of her in­de­pen­dent stance on many is­sues, in­clud­ing the con­tro­ver­sial Sec­tion 34 and run-off bills.

But in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day evening, Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who was at work at her Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion of­fice, made it clear that al­though she did not en­joy the best re­la­tion­ship with her leader she had not aban­doned ship.

"The most im­por­tant thing to me is that I fin­ish my term," she said.

"It is im­por­tant that I did not aban­don ship. I made a com­mit­ment to serve my con­stituen­cy and I held to that and I fin­ished my course."

She said she was not hap­py to be leav­ing un­der these cir­cum­stances and would have pre­ferred to con­tin­ue serv­ing. How­ev­er, she said, she could on­ly have con­tin­ued along the es­tab­lished lines of the phi­los­o­phy and prin­ci­ples of the COP, such as di­ver­si­ty, equal­i­ty for all and mer­it-based sys­tems among oth­ers.

"I said this be­fore, I don't think we re­al­ly stayed true and that has hurt me a lot in my con­stituen­cy and my rep­re­sen­ta­tion over the last five years," she said.

"Not hold­ing true to those prin­ci­ples, I think, has hurt me more and hence the rea­son for so many neg­a­tive com­ments and dis­trac­tions. I think one of the biggest is­sues in the con­stituen­cy is that I stuck to what I was sup­posed to be do­ing and I don't think many peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly ac­tivists, ap­pre­ci­at­ed that."

She ex­plained that her de­ci­sion to stand firm to her prin­ci­ples and not be ca­joled by peo­ple who bad­gered her to get favours done caused fur­ther di­vi­sion be­tween her and the coali­tion Gov­ern­ment.

Asked why she wait­ed so late to make her de­ci­sion, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she made the de­ci­sion a week ago but was prepar­ing for her de­par­ture a long time ago. She said she felt it im­por­tant to in­form her con­stituents that she had not filed nom­i­na­tion pa­pers.

As to whether she will stay with the par­ty to which she has de­vot­ed the last ten years of her life, Seep­er­sad-Bachan said she was still con­tem­plat­ing her op­tions.

How­ev­er, she said, "I am not hap­py with where the par­ty is go­ing. I think this has been as a re­sult of us not hold­ing firm to our own prin­ci­ples and val­ues and what caused us to be where we are to­day.

"Of course, I con­tin­ue to be­lieve in that vi­sion, that phi­los­o­phy and that prin­ci­ple on which we stood on. Those things are some­times not easy for politi­cians to adopt and I have seen it with my own eyes for the last five years."

How­ev­er, crit­ics say the writ­ing was on the wall a long time ago, as Seep­er­sad-Bachan was giv­en the cold shoul­der by her COP col­leagues, who did not in­vite her to par­ty ac­tiv­i­ties in her own con­stituen­cy. In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian last month, Ra­mad­har al­so said the COP had a po­ten­tial can­di­date for San Fer­nan­do West and it was not the in­cum­bent.

Let­ter to con­stituents

Out­go­ing MP Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan al­so wrote the fol­low­ing let­ter to her con­stituents yes­ter­day:

I want­ed you to be the first to know that I will not be seek­ing re-elec­tion as your Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment (MP). This is en­tire­ly my choice and even though I know that some of you will be dis­ap­point­ed, I be­lieve it is the right and ap­pro­pri­ate thing to do at this time and in light of all the cir­cum­stances.

I can say, though, that I have tried to be the best rep­re­sen­ta­tive and MP that I can be. At all times I kept to the found­ing prin­ci­ples of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and I re­mained true to its core val­ues. In ac­cor­dance with the oath that I took as Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for San Fer­nan­do West, I treat­ed every con­stituent equal­ly re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance. I know my de­trac­tors will not agree but as many of you, my Con­stituents, can at­test, I was al­ways there when you need­ed me and I re­spond­ed read­i­ly to all your re­quests for help and sup­port.

I want to es­pe­cial­ly thank those con­stituents who joined with me and my staff in help­ing oth­ers to help them­selves and one an­oth­er. Some of you were part of very im­por­tant com­mit­tees and oth­ers helped with our char­i­ty work, our can­vass­ing and our cam­paign ac­tiv­i­ties. We were able to get mem­bers of the Con­stituen­cy to­geth­er to cel­e­brate all na­tion­al events and to recog­nise and re­ward those who had made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to our city, con­stituen­cy and coun­try.

I want you to know that I see you, mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do Con­stituen­cy, as the bedrock on which the many achieve­ments of San Fer­nan­do West have been built and it is my hope that you will give as much sup­port to your par­ty's can­di­date in the next elec­tion as you gave me. There is a wealth of tal­ent and good­will in San Fer­nan­do West, a lot of po­ten­tial at all lev­els, and we should con­tin­ue to pro­vide op­por­tu­ni­ties for all so that they can achieve their dreams, ful­fil their ex­pec­ta­tions and reach their max­i­mum po­ten­tial.

I am sor­ry that we could not com­plete the Wa­ter­front project with­in this term but, hope­ful­ly, it will be com­plet­ed with­in the next elec­toral term by my suc­ces­sor. I want to thank all the vol­un­teers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the de­sign of this wa­ter­front plan and those who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the con­sul­ta­tion, giv­ing valu­able sug­ges­tions, hence help­ing us to shape the ide­al plan. It is tru­ly a project that will do much for the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do, South Trinidad and the coun­try as a whole. It de­serves the full sup­port of every­one and we should con­tin­ue to in­sist that it is a pri­or­i­ty of the next rep­re­sen­ta­tive. While my own ex­pe­ri­ence was dif­fer­ent, I con­tin­ue to hope.

Most of all, I want to thank all those con­stituents who sup­port­ed me, as well as my own staff and loy­al sup­port­ers. I could not ex­pect more from you than you gave and I thank you for all that you did to make life bet­ter for the peo­ple of San Fer­nan­do West and, by ex­ten­sion, the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go.