The chair­man of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Diego Mar­tin North/East con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive says he is not step­ping down from the po­si­tion de­spite the res­ig­na­tion of sev­en oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers on Sun­day.

Yes­ter­day, chair­man Ran­dell Pat­ter­son said the UNC does not be­long to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as he crit­i­cised her lead­er­ship fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, ac­cus­ing her of dis­miss­ing their sac­ri­fices and run­ning the par­ty in a way that “treats its mem­ber­ship like a prison pop­u­la­tion.”

In re­sponse to the res­ig­na­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was  “just the pre­dict­ed con­tin­u­a­tion of the or­ches­trat­ed res­ig­na­tions that have been on­go­ing over the last month. It will have no ef­fect on the UNC’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign just as the pre­vi­ous ones didn’t.”

In a let­ter signed by Pat­ter­son yes­ter­day, he de­nounced Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­ac­tion to the res­ig­na­tions, ar­gu­ing that the for­mer ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers had de­vot­ed “their time, en­er­gy, and even their per­son­al re­sources” to ad­vanc­ing the UNC in a tra­di­tion­al­ly Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) strong­hold.

“They did this not for per­son­al gain but be­cause they be­lieved in the par­ty’s mes­sage and its po­ten­tial to bring change,” he wrote. Yet rather than ac­knowl­edg­ing their con­tri­bu­tions, he said, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­sponse “once again ex­posed the trou­bling re­al­i­ty of how the UNC is be­ing run.”

De­spite the res­ig­na­tions, Pat­ter­son made it clear that he would not be step­ping down.

“I re­main Chair­man of the UNC Diego Mar­tin North/East Ex­ec­u­tive be­cause, con­trary to what Kam­la might think, the UNC does not be­long to her and her ca­bal,” he said. “It be­longs to the thou­sands of loy­al sup­port­ers who have built this move­ment through sac­ri­fice and ded­i­ca­tion.”

De­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as an em­bar­rass­ment, he added, “Sad­ly with­in the bound­ary of Diego Mar­tin North East, it has be­come quite em­bar­rass­ing to tell my fel­low con­stituents that ‘I’m UNC and proud’ un­der the lead­er­ship of Kam­la.”

‘Kam­la is fail­ing the UNC’

Pat­ter­son ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of be­tray­ing the par­ty’s grass­roots, ar­gu­ing that a po­lit­i­cal leader should “work for the par­ty’s mem­bers—not the oth­er way around.” He warned that by dis­re­gard­ing ded­i­cat­ed UNC sup­port­ers, she had sent a “clear mes­sage: or­di­nary UNC mem­bers are not val­ued by those at the top.”

The sev­en res­ig­na­tions came over the week­end in a joint let­ter. The ex­ec­u­tives said they were linked to mount­ing con­cerns over an al­leged al­liance be­tween the UNC and the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), led by Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der. Sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers ob­ject­ed to any co­op­er­a­tion with Alexan­der, whom Pat­ter­son de­scribed as “re­pug­nant” and “re­pul­sive.”

“No right-think­ing per­son in Diego Mar­tin, St Ann’s, or any­where else would ever cast their vote for such a re­pul­sive in­di­vid­ual,” Pat­ter­son stat­ed, ar­gu­ing that Alexan­der’s rhetoric “on­ly serve[s] to di­vide and dis­gust, rather than up­lift and in­spire.”