Don’t be ma­nip­u­lat­ed in­to vi­o­lat­ing UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion.

This was the re­minder yes­ter­day from UNC lead­er­ship chal­lenger Vas­ant Bharath to par­ty con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tives.

He said the UNC’s Con­sti­tu­tion doesn’t re­quire that state­ments of loy­al­ty for the par­ty leader be made in an in­ter­nal elec­tion - and he al­so gave this re­minder to those whom he said “may seek to con­trol ex­ec­u­tives.”

His re­minder came af­ter UNC’s St Au­gus­tine and Oropouche East units and San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein re­cent­ly came out in sup­port of in­cum­bent leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

The lead­er­ship post is among UNC na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tions open for con­test in UNC’s De­cem­ber 6 in­ter­nal elec­tion.

Bharath said, “I specif­i­cal­ly re­fer to the state­ments of cer­tain Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tives been post­ed on so­cial me­dia and which ap­pear to pledge loy­al­ty to the cur­rent leader. Whilst the pub­li­ca­tion of these state­ments are cause for se­ri­ous con­cern, I am com­fort­ed by my faith in your knowl­edge that loy­al­ty can­not be tak­en from you, nor should it be de­mand­ed of you; it must be earned by true lead­er­ship. I do how­ev­er ap­pre­ci­ate the po­lit­i­cal re­al­i­ty of your re­spec­tive sit­u­a­tions and wish to let you know that I har­bour no ill will or mal­ice.”

“Let me give to you my solemn word; should the mem­bers of our great par­ty de­cide on De­cem­ber 6 to elect me as your leader, I will in no way dis­crim­i­nate, os­tra­cize or un­der­mine any Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tive that has made pub­lic state­ments in sup­port of the cur­rent leader.”

“I shall seek no ret­ri­bu­tion. That’s not my way, that’s not the leader I as­pire to be and that’s not the vi­sion which I have for our par­ty. I as­sure you, un­der my lead­er­ship, we shall be a par­ty of love, dig­ni­ty, and mu­tu­al re­spect- a par­ty of uni­ty be­cause I sin­cere­ly be­lieve uni­ty is strength.”

Bharath added, “While democ­ra­cy can be a po­tent force for pos­i­tive change, its frailty can be ex­posed by those who seek to re­main in pow­er on­ly for the sake of wield­ing pow­er. A de­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­ty can­not ex­ist with­out prop­er­ly func­tion­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions. Our par­ty’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic in­sti­tu­tions are pop­u­lat­ed by our de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-mind­ed mem­bers. Con­se­quent­ly, an at­tack on our par­ty’s in­sti­tu­tions is an at­tack on the mem­bers of our par­ty.”

“De­c­la­ra­tions of loy­al­ty by our in­de­pen­dent Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tives are di­rect­ly re­pug­nant to the spir­it, tenor, and in­tent of our con­sti­tu­tion. In oth­er words, our con­sti­tu­tion does not con­tem­plate or re­quire de­c­la­ra­tions of loy­al­ty to the leader dur­ing the con­duct of in­ter­nal elec­tions. In fact, I dare say our con­sti­tu­tion im­plied­ly re­jects such con­duct.”

“I don’t seek to con­demn the Con­stituen­cy Ex­ec­u­tives which have is­sued these state­ments. In­stead, I wish to re­spect­ful­ly re­mind you, and those who seek to ex­er­cise con­trol over you, of the aims and ob­jec­tives of our great par­ty as set out in our con­sti­tu­tion.”

He added, “I re­spect­ful­ly ask that all mem­bers, in­sti­tu­tions, coun­cil­lors, MPs, sen­a­tors, and oth­er of­fi­cers of our great par­ty re­mem­ber these con­sti­tu­tion­al prin­ci­ples and gov­ern your­selves ac­cord­ing­ly.”

The UNC deputy leader David Lee and oth­ers did not an­swer calls on Bharath’s state­ment.