Gail Alexan­der

While Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be ap­point­ed as Op­po­si­tion Leader to­day, some of her for­mer key sup­port­ers have hard­ened their crit­i­cism of her con­tin­ued lead­er­ship.

A num­ber of Per­sad-Bisses­sar's MPs and the UNC-con­trolled Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion, re­cent­ly ex­pressed sup­port for her

UNC ac­tivists yes­ter­day added that the UNC un­der her lead­er­ship won more votes in the re­cent gen­er­al elec­tion as a par­ty on its own and with­out ties to oth­er par­ties than the UNC did in 2015 when it was part of the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship (PP) coali­tion. They not­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar won the UNC's lead­er­ship polls with in­creas­ing votes since 2010 when she best­ed UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day. They said she in­creased votes in 2015 against Roodal Mooni­lal 's chal­lenge and in 2017 against Chris­tine Newal­lo-Ho­sein's and they saw no rea­son for her to re­sign.

But yes­ter­day a video of for­mer UNC MP Dr Fuad Khan was re­leased, show­ing him say­ing why the UNC had lost elec­tions. He said the same mis­take was made which Pan­day made in 2001.

"This was say­ing 'who want to go' could go and not call­ing peo­ple," Khan added.

He said the gains of the 2010 PP coali­tion were frit­tered away and over 2015-2020 no one tried to call any­one on uni­ty though he, Gan­ga Singh, Pan­day and Jack Warn­er had sought this. If there had been uni­ty, the elec­tion out­come might have been dif­fer­ent, he added.

Khan claimed Pan­day tried to get an ap­point­ment to dis­cuss uni­ty with UNC and couldn't get through. He added, "Now the PNM's con­sol­i­dat­ing, thanks to us...some­time lead­ers have to take up the phone and have talks with peo­ple."

"We lost. I hope in 2025 the lead­er­ship will come down from its pedestal and make phone calls. Peo­ple may cuss you but at least you'll have talks for a uni­fied front. Stop be­ing so ego­tis­ti­cal - I'm fed up of it."

UNC's De­vant Ma­haraj who's re­lent­less­ly called for Per­sad-Bisses­sar "to go" re­leased a lengthy state­ment yes­ter­day, call­ing for the UNC to have in­ter­nal elec­tions this year.

He queried the leader's bid to re­tain stay on (un­til par­ty elec­tions) and train new MPs. He cit­ed is­sues which af­fect­ed UNC's team per­for­mance in Par­lia­ment last term.

"One of their most im­por­tant lessons may have to be how to take in­struc­tions by phone as the lead­er­ship watch­ing Par­lia­ment from home, phones in in­struc­tions. There was a fail­ure to con­front the Par­lia­men­tary mu­sic on dif­fi­cult is­sues."

"Mon­i­tor­ing of the Par­lia­ment showed the lead­er­ship failed to at­tend, par­tic­i­pate and con­tribute in a mean­ing­ful way in the Par­lia­ment. At­ten­dance was late or left ear­ly even when it in­volved de­bates that were tout­ed as crit­i­cal to UNC."

He queried if MPs will be taught the same ra­tio­nale that led the UNC to fail to sup­port the ap­point­ment of a Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and oth­er sig­nif­i­cant bills.

"Will they be taught how to de­liv­er weak, bor­ing de­bates that fail to make any news cy­cle and al­low the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s mes­sage to dom­i­nate the me­dia?"

Ma­haraj asked if MPs would try to ma­nip­u­late UNC's Con­sti­tu­tion and coun­cil­lors and for­go com­pe­ten­cy in favour of post­ing items on so­cial me­dia.

"Will new MPs be taught that op­tics of the par­ty is more im­por­tant than the sub­stance of the par­ty. Giv­en the un­bro­ken pat­tern of con­duct of the lead­er­ship for the last decade can we re­al­ly ex­pect that the new ad­di­tions im­posed on the na­tion will be taught any­thing dif­fer­ent oth­er than self-preser­va­tion and pro­mo­tion is more im­por­tant than par­ty and coun­try?"