KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

The out­go­ing leader and ex­ec­u­tive of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) are now at odds with each oth­er on the is­sue of whether Prakash Ra­mad­har has le­git­i­mate­ly been ap­point­ed as the par­ty’s in­ter­im leader.

Last Thurs­day, COP in­ter­im chair­man Lons­dale Williams an­nounced that Ra­mad­har, its for­mer head, had been re­turned to the helm.

Ra­mad­har was said to have re­placed Kirt Sin­nette, who stepped down af­ter ini­tial­ly nam­ing Ra­mad­har a deputy leader be­fore mak­ing him new in­ter­im leader.

The COP al­so an­nounced it was part of the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance (PA), which in­cludes Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith’s HOPE.

Sin­nette al­so con­firmed the po­lit­i­cal shift.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day, Williams took an about-turn on his own an­nounce­ment.

In a re­lease, Williams said, “As chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), I would like to clear up any mis­con­cep­tions in the me­dia of our na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive hav­ing met on Tues­day 17 De­cem­ber 2024 (or any oth­er date) to en­dorse or rat­i­fy any po­si­tion or po­si­tions with the COP or by the COP. For the record, I wish to state that nei­ther our na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive nor our na­tion­al coun­cil have met to en­dorse the ap­point­ment of an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader as per Ar­ti­cles 17 and 18 of our con­sti­tu­tion. As chair­man, I give the un­der­tak­ing once again that as soon as such de­ci­sions are made, that our mem­ber­ship and then the pop­u­la­tion will be no­ti­fied.”

The par­ty pre­vi­ous­ly re­vealed that Sin­nette had re­signed as act­ing leader at an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing last Tues­day. It al­so said Sin­nette pledged to work with Ra­mad­har to en­sure suc­cess at the polls next year.

Ra­mad­har served as COP po­lit­i­cal leader from 2011 to 2016.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Sin­nette yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, he sought to clear the air on the lead­er­ship mix-up. He said de­spite yes­ter­day’s re­lease, Ra­mad­har is in­deed act­ing as po­lit­i­cal leader fol­low­ing his (Sin­nette’s) res­ig­na­tion.

While he ad­mit­ted the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive was yet to meet on the ap­point­ment, Sin­nette said the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion al­lows for the deputy leader to step up in the in­ter­im if the po­lit­i­cal leader re­lin­quish­es his role. He said as in­ter­im leader, he had the au­thor­i­ty to ap­point three deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, two in Trinidad and one in To­ba­go. He said he on­ly ap­point­ed one, Ra­mad­har.

As such, Ra­mad­har, in his ca­pac­i­ty as the on­ly deputy leader, now heads the COP’s ship un­til fur­ther no­tice, Sin­nette said.

En­dors­ing Ra­mad­har, Sin­nette said go­ing in­to an elec­tion year, COP needs such a leader, es­pe­cial­ly since the par­ty has no mon­ey.

Sin­nette said, “That is not for them (ex­ec­u­tive) to do. I, as po­lit­i­cal leader, I am giv­en that au­thor­i­ty to ap­point my deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers. They don’t have to ap­prove noth­ing. I ap­point who I want as my deputy po­lit­i­cal leader to work with me go­ing for­ward... But we did not have a quo­rum, but I want­ed to leave so he (Ra­mad­har) is now the act­ing leader.”

Asked why he re­signed from the par­ty last week, Sin­nette replied, “I have left be­cause I think that I have tried my­self with Lons­dale to hold the par­ty to­geth­er. Go­ing in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion, I think we need a leader that peo­ple will have more faith in, fi­nanciers will have more faith in, and mon­ey to come in­to the par­ty. At this present time, the Con­gress of the Peo­ple has no mon­ey and if we’re se­ri­ous about fight­ing a gen­er­al elec­tion, we need mon­ey, spon­sors and fi­nanciers on board to en­sure that we can make our­selves vi­able.”

He added, “I am not go­ing to fool my­self. I’m not hold­ing on to some­thing know­ing that at the end of the day, it’s go­ing to be a los­ing bat­tle. I’m not on that. I want to en­sure that the Con­gress of the Peo­ple re­mains alive and we’re in gov­ern­ment and we could ac­tu­al­ly save Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

How­ev­er, he said he re­mains a mem­ber of the par­ty.

At­tempts to con­tact Williams and Ra­mad­har were un­suc­cess­ful up to press time.