Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Amidst con­cerns over a loss of mem­bers from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is still con­fi­dent in her par­ty’s chances of win­ning this year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the re­marks as she ar­rived at the par­ty’s head­quar­ters on Mulchan Seuchan Road, Ch­agua­nas to par­tic­i­pate in screen­ing du­ties for prospec­tive can­di­dates for the La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro and Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mer­ly D’Abadie/O’Meara) seats.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions over for­mer UNC mem­bers break­ing ranks to form al­liances with small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she did not feel any of the small­er po­lit­i­cal units could chal­lenge the UNC and ques­tioned their le­git­i­ma­cy, re­fer­ring to them as “lead­ers with­out fol­low­ers.”

“You look at some of these ‘pop-up’ par­ties and you have to ask the ques­tion again, what is their mem­ber­ship, when did they have an elec­tion?

“When did they (the small­er par­ties) have in­ter­nal elec­tions? Who elect­ed them to be lead­ers? Who is the screen­ing com­mit­tee?”

Last year for­mer Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir broke ranks with the UNC when he sup­port­ed whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion, vot­ing against the par­ty.

He lat­er an­nounced that he was leav­ing the par­ty ex­press­ing crit­i­cism over the par­ty’s lead­er­ship.

At­tor­ney Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, al­so left the par­ty on Mon­day.

Lal­la, in a let­ter to par­ty chair­man Dave Tan­coo said he could no longer af­ford to stay in the par­ty af­ter un­suc­cess­ful­ly lob­by­ing for in­ter­nal re­form.

While Rag­bir says he was will­ing to serve from “out­side the par­ty,” nei­ther can­di­date has com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing any oth­er par­ty.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that she was not con­cerned, as any­one who no longer felt hap­py with­in the UNC was wel­come to leave, as she re­ferred to a past quote from her pre­de­ces­sor Bas­deo Pan­day.

She claimed that the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship con­tin­ued to grow dai­ly at­tract­ing new mem­bers who were just as ca­pa­ble and will­ing to serve.

Not­ing that yes­ter­day’s screen­ing ex­er­cise sought to se­lect can­di­dates to rep­re­sent Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca (for­mer­ly D’Abadie/O’Meara) and La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was im­pressed with the qual­i­ty of per­sons com­ing for­ward to be screened.

Re­fer­ring to a rel­a­tive­ly close race be­tween the UNC’s can­di­date Jear­lean John and the PNM’s Fos­ter Cum­mings dur­ing the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it was pos­si­ble for the UNC to win in that seat this year.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so re­spond­ed to claims that loy­al par­ty mem­bers were be­ing “award­ed” to con­test “safe” seats for the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, while oth­ers were made to be can­di­dates for mar­gin­al, “swing” seats.

She not­ed that while there was noth­ing wrong with recog­nis­ing the loy­al­ty and con­tri­bu­tions of par­ty mem­bers, their com­pe­tence and per­for­mance as rep­re­sen­ta­tives for com­mu­ni­ties was al­so a pri­or­i­ty in be­ing se­lect­ed.

“Is some­thing wrong with giv­ing pa­tri­ots of a par­ty who have strug­gled for the past umpteen years?

“Yes, loy­al­ty is im­por­tant, but they al­so have to be com­pe­tent.”

But when asked if this would be best for the con­stituen­cies they were se­lect­ed to rep­re­sent, Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that per­for­mance was al­so a crit­i­cal de­cid­ing fac­tor.

“Loy­al­ty to the par­ty is cri­te­ria num­ber one.

“And the prob­lem when it comes to choos­ing can­di­dates is that many are called, and there can on­ly be one.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added that as of yes­ter­day evening no can­di­dates for any “safe seats” were an­nounced and urged them to wait for the out­come of the se­lec­tion process.

Un­like oth­er screen­ing ex­er­cis­es, yes­ter­day’s process hap­pened with­out any fan­fare as can­di­dates and oth­er par­ty mem­bers slow­ly trick­led in­to the build­ing by 5.30 pm.

As the evening pro­gressed, a stead­ier stream of sup­port­ers and mem­bers wear­ing UNC T-shirts were seen en­ter­ing the com­pound.

One par­ty of­fi­cial who asked not to be named said part of the rea­son for the lack of pageantry and ex­cite­ment was that screen­ing for both seats be­gan as ear­ly as Jan­u­ary and last Mon­day, with yes­ter­day’s ex­er­cise sim­ply fol­low­ing up on oth­er prospec­tive can­di­dates who did not get a chance to un­der­go screen­ing.