Wes­ley Gib­bings

George­town-Heat­ed in­ter­nal par­ty con­tests have been over-shad­ow­ing cor­re­spond­ing­ly in­tense in­ter-par­ty con­flict as this South Amer­i­can main­land Cari­com state ap­proach­es elec­tions due by Au­gust 27, mi­nus sit­ting Pres­i­dent Bhar­rat Jagdeo.A two-term con­sti­tu­tion­al lim­it means the 47-year-old Rus­sia-trained econ­o­mist will have to step aside in favour of one of up to six Peo­ple's Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (PPP) as­pi­rants.The process has been en­gaged as an in­tense show­down of erst­while po­lit­i­cal al­lies. PPP gen­er­al sec­re­tary, Don­ald Ramo­tar, is wide­ly tout­ed as the pre­ferred choice of the out­go­ing pres­i­dent.

Vet­er­an cam­paign­ers for­mer In­for­ma­tion min­is­ter Moses Nag­amootoo; pres­i­den­tial ad­vis­er Gail Teix­eira; Home Af­fairs Min­is­ter Clement Ro­hee; House Speak­er Ralph Ramkar­ran and, pos­si­bly, Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Robert Per­saud are al­so all do­ing bat­tle for the po­si­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. The po­si­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­date is to be dis­tin­guished from po­lit­i­cal leader of the PPP-a post left va­cant up­on the death of late pres­i­dent Janet Ja­gan in 2009. Ramo­tar is wide­ly and ar­guably held to be de fac­to par­ty leader.

The dif­fer­ence in port­fo­lios al­so ob­tains in the case of the op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Con­gress (PNC) which on Feb­ru­ary 26 elect­ed re­tired brigadier, David Granger, to the po­si­tion of pres­i­den­tial can­di­date for the up­com­ing elec­tions. The sub­stan­tive par­ty leader is Robert Corbin who is said not to cur­rent­ly en­joy broad sup­port with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion and has ex­pressed an un­will­ing­ness to face the polls as pres­i­den­tial can­di­date. In both in­stances, the in­tra-par­ty show­downs have been char­ac­terised by vit­ri­olic cam­paigns. The race to fill the can­di­date po­si­tion with­in the PNC last­ed six months and was a con­test that saw five hope­fuls, in­clud­ing front-run­ners Granger and well-known Caribbean econ­o­mist, Carl Greenidge.

The PPP won the 2006 elec­tions with 54 per cent of the pop­u­lar vote in a list sys­tem of pro­por­tion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tion, while the PNC be­came the ma­jor­i­ty op­po­si­tion with 34 per cent of the vote. The mi­nor­i­ty Al­liance for Change (AFC) earned 8.1 per cent sup­port.In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian, Nag­amootoo-a for­mer jour­nal­ist-said his ag­gres­sive cam­paign, which has in­clud­ed claims of cor­rup­tion and fraud against the in­cum­bent PPP ad­min­is­tra­tion, is not an at­tempt "to bring the PPP down."He is re­fus­ing to make him­self avail­able for screen­ing by a 15-mem­ber screen­ing com­mit­tee he has de­scribed as a new de­vice to en­sure the pres­i­dent's pre­ferred can­di­date faces the par­ty's 35-mem­ber cen­tral com­mit­tee.