For­mer UNC MP Dr Fuad Khan is de­light­ed at the UNC ac­com­mo­da­tion with Gary Grif­fith’s NTA and Jack Warn­er. But for­mer UNC MP Vas­ant Bharath has dis­missed UNC’s ac­com­mo­da­tion as a “last-minute cap-in-hand coali­tion of con­ve­nience”. They spoke to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Khan com­ment­ed fol­low­ing a query whether he was to have been among guests on the UNC/NTA/Warn­er ac­com­mo­da­tion plat­form at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence last night. This was be­ing spec­u­lat­ed by some UNC mem­bers, ex­cit­ed about the par­ty’s ac­com­mo­da­tion.

The move has re­grouped some past PP gov­ern­ment front-lin­ers who were out of the PP/UNC–Warn­er, since 2013 when he re­signed from that gov­ern­ment fol­low­ing FI­FA is­sues; Grif­fith, since 2015 when he was fired as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter.

Warn­er lat­er formed his In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty which un­suc­cess­ful­ly fought UNC/PP in sub­se­quent elec­tions. Grif­fith be­came po­lice com­mis­sion­er in 2018 with the PNM Gov­ern­ment’s sup­port though the UNC ab­stained from vot­ing for him. Af­ter is­sues with the Gov­ern­ment, Grif­fith was not reap­point­ed com­mis­sion­er. He formed the NTA last year.

Af­ter he demit­ted of­fice as com­mis­sion­er, there were UNC sig­nals of sup­port for him—in­clud­ing leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s view that he should have reap­plied for the post. Last week she called him “the great­est CoP”.

Yes­ter­day, UNC’s Khan, who un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar for UNC’s lead­er­ship, said he had not been ap­proached to ap­pear on last night’s plat­form.

But Khan added, “The time is cor­rect to start the process to put things in place for the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion. Peo­ple in this coun­try are hurt­ing and ob­serv­ing their loss of dis­pos­able in­come and de­scent in­to pover­ty.

“This oc­curred as a re­sult of the way COVID-19 was han­dled with un­nec­es­sary lock­downs and stu­pid reg­u­la­tions. This pover­ty has re­sult­ed in an epi­dem­ic of home in­va­sions, caused by pol­i­cy in­com­pe­tence.

“If good peo­ple stay out of pub­lic af­fairs then the road is free for in­com­pe­tent peo­ple to reign. Hence, I do hope that I can make a dif­fer­ence again us­ing the par­ty to which I be­long to make this dif­fer­ence—Un­cle Jack and Gary has (sic) shown the way.”

Vasant Bharath

SHASTRI BOODAN

But for­mer UNC Min­is­ter Bharath, who had al­so un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar for lead­er­ship, com­ment­ed un­favourably on UNC’s ac­com­mo­da­tions.

Bharath said, “Peo­ple are fed up with the PNM, who have very few if any ideas as to how to get the coun­try out of the hor­ri­ble mess that is self-in­flict­ed. Re­gret­tably, af­ter hav­ing been at the helm of the UNC for the last 13 years, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has done vir­tu­al­ly noth­ing to build a sin­gle, fo­cused, and unit­ed par­ty to ce­ment the UNC as a force to of­fer a gen­uine op­tion to the failed PNM regime.”

“The UNC is now no longer a na­tion­al one, hav­ing giv­en up on To­ba­go and now sev­er­al ar­eas in the East-West cor­ri­dor. This last-minute cap-in-hand ac­com­mo­da­tion/coali­tion of con­ve­nience is a slap in the face for cit­i­zens whose on­ly con­cerns are for a bet­ter qual­i­ty of life through bet­ter gov­er­nance and bet­ter qual­i­ty of lead­ers.”

Bharath added, “Ad­di­tion­al­ly the UNC’s leader has a poor record in hold­ing to­geth­er coali­tions, as ev­i­denced by the will­ful de­struc­tion of the COP, NJAC, TOP, and MSJ and an even worse record in con­vinc­ing the pop­u­la­tion since 2013 that she can ever re­place the PNM. Of course, the diehards on ei­ther side will swal­low what­ev­er is dished out but the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens see both sides for what they are, po­lit­i­cal op­por­tunists just play­ing games with their lives. For many, we have be­come a choice­less so­ci­ety.”

Last night, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged oth­ers to re­turn home–but with a warn­ing.

“We’ll work with oth­er par­ties and wel­come back peo­ple who stayed out or are gone, but loy­al mem­bers who with­stood tremen­dous as­saults–this par­ty is yours!” she added.

She said she had sort­ed out her dif­fer­ences with Warn­er and Grif­fith. “We’re not tot­ing, just vot­ing.”