Gail Alexan­der

In­cum­bent UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Star Team is un­op­posed in 15 of the 18 Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions and on­ly three posts—in­clud­ing her lead­er­ship—will be con­test­ed in the par­ty’s June 26 elec­tions.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan, who is chal­leng­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar for lead­er­ship, says he doesn’t want to be Prime Min­is­ter but wants to be par­ty leader to help re­build the UNC so Per­sad-Bisses­sar can be Prime Min­is­ter again.

“So don’t go on no plat­form and get wor­ried I want to take your Prime Min­is­ter­ship—no!” Khan said in a video ad­dress­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

This fol­lowed yes­ter­day’s re­lease of the of­fi­cial list of valid­ly nom­i­nat­ed can­di­dates for the June 26 in­ter­nals.

It was is­sued by the UNC’s elec­tion team—Ramesh Per­sad-Ma­haraj, Dr Kar­lene Sookoo-By­noe and Mar­i­lyn Mar­tin.

The dead­line for with­drawals was last Sat­ur­day. Ma­haraj said there were no with­drawals.

Apart from Khan, for­mer UNC MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al is chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent Don Sylvester for the post of elec­tions of­fi­cer.

One-time Siparia Cor­po­ra­tion chair­man and Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh, is chal­leng­ing MP Ravi Rati­ram for the post of par­ty or­gan­is­er.

Among those on Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s team who are un­op­posed are MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee and Jear­lean John—all for deputy leader posts.

Mooni­lal re­places Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe, out­go­ing deputy leader.

The Star Team is hold­ing cam­paign meet­ings dai­ly.

Khan didn’t an­swer calls but sent a video where he ad­dressed Per­sad-Bisses­sar, dis­agree­ing with her view on who could be­come Prime Min­is­ter. Cit­ing the num­ber of things a leader had to do to fight the Gov­ern­ment, he not­ed many things ab­sent from UNC’s sys­tems and added that was be­cause Per­sad-Bisses­sar was too caught up in Par­lia­ment work.

Khan said he want­ed to be par­ty leader but not in Par­lia­ment and had no de­sire to be Prime Min­is­ter.

“I want to be in the par­ty to make it stronger for you to be­come Prime Min­is­ter. If mem­bers want you to be­come PM, they will elect me as leader and we can work to­geth­er as a team to en­sure the UNC ends up in Gov­ern­ment,” Khan added.

Ram­di­al al­so said, “It’ll be eas­i­er for me to win this time since I held the post be­fore and mem­bers know me and they’ll see what was done so far and that the sta­tus quo re­mains. Mem­bers want change so I don’t think it’ll be hard to win this post.”

Ramd­hars­ingh, cam­paign­ing in Freeport yes­ter­day, ad­mit­ted it would be a tough fight, es­pe­cial­ly since there was a lot of in­fra­struc­ture at MPs’ of­fices that could help oth­ers.

“But this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the par­ty to demon­strate we’re analysing and show­ing we’re in­ter­est­ed in unit­ing, ac­cept­ing peo­ple who as­pire and say­ing if peo­ple are pleased with per­for­mance. We can rev­o­lu­tionise re­spons­es in the UNC.”

Po­lit­i­cal Leader - Khan, Fuad - Op­posed

Po­lit­i­cal Leader - Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Kam­la - Op­posed

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader - John, Jear­lean - Un­op­posed

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader - Lee, David An­tho­ny - Un­op­posed

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader - Mooni­lal, Roodal - Un­op­posed

Chair­man - Tan­coo, Dav­en­dranath - Un­op­posed

Deputy Chair­man - Ameen, Khadi­jah - Un­op­posed

Pol­i­cy & Strat­e­gy Of­fi­cer - Sobers, Sean - Un­op­posed

Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer - Mo­hit, Van­dana - Un­op­posed

Re­search Of­fi­cer - Ho­sein, Sad­dam - Un­op­posed

Elec­tions Of­fi­cer - Ram­di­al, Ra­mona - Op­posed

Elec­tions Of­fi­cer - Sylvester, Don - Op­posed

Trea­sur­er - Go­sine, Col­in Neil - Un­op­posed

Par­ty Or­ga­niz­er - Ra­mad­har-Singh, Glenn - Op­posed

Par­ty Or­ga­niz­er - Rati­ram, Ravi - Op­posed

In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer - Mor­ris, Wil­fred Nicholas - Un­op­posed

Re­gion­al Rep. Cen­tral - Padarath, Bar­ry Shi­va - Un­op­posed

Re­gion­al Rep. North­east - Roberts, Anil - Un­op­posed

Re­gion­al Rep. North­west - Za­k­our, Eli Al­fred - Un­op­posed

Re­gion­al Rep. South - Boodram, Shan­ty - Un­op­posed

Re­gion­al Rep. To­ba­go - Obi­ka, Tahar­qa Imhotep - Un­op­posed

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