With the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ in­ter­nal elec­tions just one day away, deputy po­lit­i­cal leader hope­ful Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne has ac­cused se­nior par­ty of­fi­cials of hid­ing from mem­bers and the pub­lic at large.

Speak­ing dur­ing the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate’s meet­ing in Ma­yaro on Wednes­day, Haynes-Al­leyne told sup­port­ers of a re­cent in­ci­dent where UNC of­fi­cials were al­leged­ly ex­cus­ing them­selves from not “talk­ing”.

She re­called they said, “Who will speak to the me­dia? Who will speak to mem­bers of the UNC? The chair­man watch me and say ‘not me’. The deputy po­lit­i­cal leader watch me and say ‘not me’. All three deputy lead­ers sat down there and said not me. They say ‘Ani­ta you go, you go and talk to the UNC peo­ple and say we will find a way for­ward’.

“And then you com­ing to tell me last night (Tues­day) who does hide?” she said.

Haynes-Al­leyne said this ap­par­ent cul­ture of hid­ing was tied to the par­ty’s con­sec­u­tive elec­tion loss­es.

“You telling me who does hide? So the rea­son they are so com­fort­able with los­ing the elec­tions is be­cause when they lose they will hide from you again,” she de­clared.

MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, who is not con­test­ing a po­si­tion in the in­ter­nal polls, but in­tro­duced can­di­dates on the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate, said he was fed-up with the many elec­tion loss­es of the UNC and added that the time has come for change.

Ram­bal­ly said the change which the par­ty need­ed was be­ing of­fered by the UP to move the UNC for­ward and the coun­try back to good gov­er­nance.

He said this fo­cus on change was not be­ing seen in the oth­er slate for the in­ter­nal elec­tions.

“They lack com­mit­ment, they lack ded­i­ca­tion and they lack di­rec­tion. That is why the on­ly thing they need and the on­ly thing they can do is to just come out and point fin­gers and say ‘that one this’ and ‘that one that’ and per­son­al­ly at­tack­ing mem­bers of this slate. We need to at­tack the PNM and not each oth­er,” Ram­bal­ly said.

Ram­bal­ly added that he be­lieves the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate has cre­at­ed a move­ment in the UNC which should al­so be used to help move T&T for­ward.

He said the move­ment, which was trig­gered by the call to hold the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions in the UNC, must go on, no mat­ter what.

“We need to con­tin­ue this move­ment. This mass move­ment to­wards progress, to­wards win­ning gov­ern­ment and that is when we will see free­dom from all crime and all the ills and the prob­lems that we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing,” Ram­bal­ly said.

The Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate is be­ing led by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray.