Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) has reached out to the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to dis­cuss its de­sire to con­test sev­er­al seats in the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har made the an­nounce­ment yes­ter­day while ad­dress­ing a press con­fer­ence at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters in Curepe.

Ra­mad­har said, “It is, of course, our in­ten­tion to run in many seats. In fact, I would say now we have opened a line of com­mu­ni­ca­tion for­mal­ly with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to be­gin dis­cus­sions on how we would move for­ward.”

He did not re­veal if the par­ty re­ceived a re­sponse.

Ra­mad­har re­it­er­at­ed his view that the par­ty could on­ly suc­ceed in its goal of im­prov­ing T&T if it held seats in Par­lia­ment.

“When I came back in­to pol­i­tics, I told my col­leagues that we did not come to waste time ... We came to make change, pos­i­tive change in this coun­try. The best ideas, the best am­bi­tions with­out pow­er, are just that: ideas and am­bi­tion,” he said.

Not­ing that the par­ty se­cured over 148,000 votes in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion but failed to se­cure a seat, he point­ed out that it on­ly ex­pe­ri­enced elec­toral suc­cess when it teamed up with the UNC and oth­er small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties to form the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship for the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“We have to learn. There­fore, if we want our poli­cies, am­bi­tions, and ideas to be man­i­fest­ed in­to re­al­i­ty, we have to be part of a gov­ern­ment. We can­not do it alone,” he said.

While both the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the UNC have com­plet­ed screen­ing for the elec­tion, the date of which is yet to be an­nounced, on­ly the PNM has an­nounced the full list of its can­di­dates.

The PNM can­di­dates are ex­pect­ed to be of­fi­cial­ly un­veiled to sup­port­ers at a ral­ly in Wood­ford Square in Port-of-Spain lat­er to­day.

The ral­ly takes place on the eve of the re­tire­ment of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and the pend­ing swear­ing-in of Min­is­ter of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Stu­art Young as his re­place­ment.

Ra­mad­har de­scribed the lead­er­ship change as cos­met­ic.

“Mr Young, who I con­sid­er a good per­son, would be swal­lowed up. It is ob­vi­ous that the pow­er in the PNM is not those who you see, like the Prime Min­is­ter or the Cab­i­net, you know. There are pow­ers be­hind who make the de­ci­sions and use the Cab­i­net to ef­fect their poli­cies,” he said.

Ra­mad­har spent a con­sid­er­able por­tion of the con­fer­ence ad­dress­ing the is­sue of crime.

He re­vealed that a se­nior ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber was robbed at gun­point short­ly af­ter leav­ing a meet­ing at the lo­ca­tion last week.

“So, we are all af­fect­ed,” he said.

He sug­gest­ed that the po­lice should fo­cus on charg­ing and pros­e­cut­ing a hand­ful of ma­jor crim­i­nal of­fend­ers to send a mes­sage to the small part of the pop­u­la­tion in­volved in crime.

“It is our be­lief at this ta­ble that the num­ber of true hard­core crim­i­nals is far less in num­ber than we are led to be­lieve. If you suc­cess­ful­ly go af­ter a small num­ber, then the mes­sage would go out to those who think that their fu­ture is crim­i­nal­i­ty and a pro­fes­sion of crime,” he said.

He not­ed that a sim­i­lar ap­proach was tak­en in the 1990s to ad­dress drug king­pin Nankissoon “Dole Chadee” Boodram and mem­bers of his gang, who were ex­e­cut­ed af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of the mur­ders of four mem­bers of a Pi­paro fam­i­ly.