Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Es­tranged Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir is await­ing word on the pasty’s screen­ing for his con­stituen­cy, and his col­league, Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, says when he spoke out on thorny is­sues in the par­ty, he (Ram­bal­ly) knew ful­ly well that it may be at the ex­pense of any fu­ture con­sid­er­a­tion of re-se­lec­tion.

This, as UNC’s screen­ing process be­gan last Fri­day. Yes­ter­day, UNC of­fi­cials couldn’t say when Ras­g­bir and Ram­bal­ly’s ar­eas will be screened.

Rag­bir and Ram­bal­ly had sup­port­ed MP Rush­ton Paray’s slate in the in­ter­nal elec­tions in June against leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate. Though dis­tanced from the par­ty since then, they still filed nom­i­na­tions for their re­spec­tive seats.

Speak­ing over the week­end, Rag­bir said, “I haven’t been con­tact­ed in any form - be it phone call, email - with re­gards to screen­ing for Cu­mu­to-Man­zanil­la ...This all re­minds me of my ‘dis­ci­pli­nary ses­sion’ with the par­ty, where I wait­ed out the Par­lia­men­tary re­cess with­out any word of that.”

Ram­bal­ly, via s state­ment yes­ter­day, said, “In April when I pub­licly ad­dressed sev­er­al thorny is­sues which were like­ly to crip­ple UNC’s abil­i­ty to win the next gen­er­al elec­tion, I did so with the ex­pec­ta­tion that, at best, these is­sues will be rec­ti­fied, or at the very least, they will not be re­peat­ed. Ei­ther way, the peo­ple of T&T were made aware and could lob­by for mean­ing­ful change if they so de­sired.”

From that day, he said he “ful­ly con­tem­plat­ed all of the pos­si­ble con­se­quences” that he’d have to face “and I’ve un­flinch­ing­ly ac­cept­ed them all.”

Ram­bal­ly said while it hasn’t been easy, his con­science is clear that he’s done “what was re­quired of me as a ser­vant of the peo­ple ... I sym­pa­thise with those in the par­ty who wished to say and do more but didn’t have the need­ed courage or were un­will­ing to face the fall­out.”

He said he spoke “... know­ing full well that it may be at the ex­pense of any fu­ture con­sid­er­a­tion of re-se­lec­tion, and that I’ve dis­charged a du­ty of can­dour to all of T&T. It’s up to the peo­ple to lob­by their lead­ers for what mat­ters to them.”

Ram­bal­ly al­so said there is a pal­pa­ble dis­con­nect be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple.

“In the last decade, so much dam­age has been done to our small so­ci­ety, and one can on­ly imag­ine what dis­as­ter looms should this PNM Gov­ern­ment win an­oth­er elec­tion. Vul­gar pay hikes, run­away crime, un­der­min­ing of in­sti­tu­tions—Cen­tral Bank, Au­di­tor Gen­er­al De­part­ment, BIR, Ju­di­cia­ry, Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion—are char­ac­ter­is­tics of failed lead­er­ship,” Ram­bal­ly said.

“Giv­en the dire straits we find our­selves in, we need to fig­ure out who we are and in so do­ing es­tab­lish what we stand for ...”

He added, “There’s nev­er been a time like this when clear, de­ci­sive and just lead­er­ship is need­ed. The time has come for us to heed the ad­vice of for­mer US Pres­i­dent John F Kennedy: ‘Ask not what your coun­try can do for you, ask what you can do for your coun­try.’ We must ex­am­ine our­selves and ask what we can do for the pub­lic good, and can we find the courage to do it. I did.

“To my crit­ics, I say what hap­pens next isn’t in my hands. As the Sri­mad Bhag­wad Gi­ta says, we have a right to do what we must, and hav­ing done so, we ought not to hang our hopes on spe­cif­ic or de­sired out­comes. Fur­ther­more, noth­ing will de­ter me from be­ing com­mit­ted to serv­ing my coun­try in any of the many ways that I can.”

Ram­bal­ly speaks at a brief­ing to­day on the cost of a fail­ing gov­ern­ment.