Chants of “fire them! Where were they? They un­der­min­ing the par­ty,” echoed through­out the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day when Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked by par­ty sup­port­ers about five of her MPs who were ab­sent in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day.

The MPs were not there to vote on a mo­tion to ex­tend the pe­ri­od to re­port on the coun­try’s fi­nan­cial ac­counts for fis­cal 2023.

It was while Per­sad-Bisses­sar was call­ing on UNC mem­bers to unite for the bet­ter­ment of the coun­try at the par­ty’s 35th an­niver­sary func­tion in Ch­agua­nas, a sup­port­er seat­ed in the front row asked her to talk about the “19 votes” on Fri­day.

“You want me to talk about that? To­day is a good day. I don’t want to talk about peo­ple aban­don­ing the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day. You want me to talk about that?” Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­spond­ed to the sup­port­er.

Her ques­tion was fol­lowed by a re­sound­ing “yes” from par­ty-faith­ful seat­ed in the au­di­ence and stand­ing in the packed cor­ri­dor.

The sup­port­er in the au­di­ence was re­fer­ring to the Gov­ern­ment’s mo­tion to ex­tend the time to present in­for­ma­tion to the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al which both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers had to vote on.

The mo­tion was passed by 19 Gov­ern­ment votes to the 14 Op­po­si­tion votes.

The five UNC MPs who were ab­sent were Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Rod­ney Charles, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly and Rush­ton Paray.

These same five MPs were no­tice­ably ab­sent from the par­ty’s an­niver­sary func­tion.

The top­ic caused a sud­den and sharp shift from a cel­e­bra­to­ry at­mos­phere to one of anger and dis­sent­ing voic­es by par­ty mem­bers.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Fri­day, 18 of her MPs were present up to a cer­tain time.

One MP sent an ex­cuse for not at­tend­ing the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives who was Haynes-Al­leyne.

She said when the PNM brought the mo­tion to have it de­layed, all 19 of its mem­bers were present.

Then the UNC on­ly had 14 MPs.

She said for the first time they had a dead­lock in Par­lia­ment.

“They run away from the Par­lia­ment and you want to tell me about Par­lia­ment and you could run Par­lia­ment. You can­not even sit down in the seat that you get in the Par­lia­ment. Stay in your seat and vote.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s tone ag­i­tat­ed par­ty stal­warts who be­gan to shout, boo and jeer in dis­ap­proval of the MPs’ ac­tions.

Many of the sup­port­ers were heard say­ing, “Fire them! Get rid of them! Where were they? They are un­der­min­ing the par­ty.”

“When the PNM brought this un­con­sti­tu­tion­al piece of law we should have all been there ... 19/19,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, but the loud jeers and boo drowned out her voice.

She said a 19/19 vote would have been a dead­lock and the Speak­er would have had to say no.

“And we would have won that vote,” she con­tin­ued.

UNC Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts be­gan scream­ing across the floor “Where they went?” which added more fu­el to the fire.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said every rope has an end and had to ap­peal to sup­port­ers so she could move along with her ad­dress.

Roberts told Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the func­tion that when they were look­ing for their team­mates “our UNC broth­ers and sis­ters in the Par­lia­ment they were not there.”

He said the UNC could have de­fend­ed the Au­di­tor Gen­er­al’s re­port.

“What is their pur­pose? You say you want to build the UNC, you want good lead­er­ship, you want to help us win but you helped us lose. You helped the PNM win.”

Roberts said the PNM has launched an­oth­er at­tack on a State of­fice.

Roberts said their ac­tions have un­der­mined the par­ty.

“They un­der­mined the team ... they un­der­mined their col­leagues ... they un­der­mined the UNC.”

He said they even un­der­mined the peo­ple who vot­ed for the par­ty.

Roberts said if peo­ple don’t agree with the po­lit­i­cal leader they can re­sign.

Calls to Paray, Charles and Rag­bir were an­swered last night while Ram­bal­ly said he was at a wake for a close rel­a­tive.

“I will treat with this af­ter my pe­ri­od of mourn­ing,” Ram­bal­ly said.

Haynes-Al­leyne said as of now she has noth­ing to dis­agree with the po­lit­i­cal leader about if the elec­tions are called when they are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due.

How­ev­er, over the last few weeks, she said, she has seen the util­i­sa­tion “of the arms of the par­ty to vil­i­fy mem­bers of the par­ty”.

She said the week be­fore in Par­lia­ment there was a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote.

“All mem­bers vot­ed along the line of the Whip. So, there­fore to make an is­sue on a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote on at­ten­dance I find that to be ridicu­lous as well. And I will hap­pi­ly sub­mit my Par­lia­men­tary at­ten­dance record to be scru­ti­nised by any oth­er mem­ber be­cause I have on­ly stayed away with cause.”