Gail Alexan­der

No re­treat, no sur­ren­der!

That was the vow yes­ter­day from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter she re­ceived firm back­ing from her Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, par­ty arm mem­bers and mem­ber­ship.

This af­ter “Bahut Ku­choor” (plen­ty mis­chief) was at play against her, UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal and oth­er UNC MPs said, fol­low­ing re­ports of mo­tions against the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive and Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

An un­signed “anony­mous” mo­tion call­ing for Per­sad-Bisses­sar to step down was float­ed on so­cial me­dia on Wednes­day, at the same time for­mer MPs Fuad Khan and Ra­mona Ram­di­al filed a mo­tion with the par­ty for de­bate at Sun­day’s par­ty con­gress.

Khan’s mo­tion, how­ev­er, ad­dressed bring­ing back dor­mant UNC mem­bers and strength­en­ing the ex­ec­u­tive with­out re­mov­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar. But it didn’t qual­i­fy for de­bate.

Fol­low­ing an er­ro­neous Trinidad Ex­press re­port head­line that “Kam­la Must go,” UNC MPs, Sen­a­tors, Na­tex of­fi­cials and the par­ty’s Women’s Arm all “backed” Per­sad-Bisses­sar firm­ly yes­ter­day.

Re­spond­ing briefly to T&T Guardian ques­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “It’s Car­ni­val time and what’s been hap­pen­ing shows clear­ly that the moko jumbies and la­ga­hoos are com­ing out. How­ev­er, the UNC mem­ber­ship has al­ready re­ject­ed the two framers of this mo­tion.”

On the im­pact of the is­sue and oth­ers—such as the three spoilt bal­lots dur­ing the elec­tion of the Pres­i­dent last week—Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “Re­mem­ber one thing: we in UNC abide by democ­ra­cy.

“The UNC is ful­ly mo­bilised, it is strong and we will show you that at Sun­day’s Con­gress. It is a new year. We are on the move. And we’re ready for Gov­ern­ment. No re­treat. No sur­ren­der.”

Mooni­lal added, “Khan’s mo­tion is il­log­i­cal and out of time. If they want to re­move the leader and ex­ec­u­tive, they can mo­bilise mem­bers and at the ap­pro­pri­ate time, seek to change the ex­ec­u­tive through the con­sti­tu­tion­al process.”

He said the oth­er “name­less” mo­tion to re­move Per­sad-Bisses­sar was de­signed for po­lit­i­cal mis­chief and felt the PNM had in­fil­trat­ed and was be­hind that mat­ter and us­ing what they feel are UNC faces to at­tack UNC.

“It’s what we say is ‘Bahut Ku­choor’—plen­ty mis­chief,” he said, adding Khan’s mo­tion ap­peared to be a bid to re­move UNC’s ex­ec­u­tive via a process ul­tra vires to UNC’s con­sti­tu­tion.

“I can on­ly con­clude the ob­jec­tive is Bahut Ku­choor too. I think he and (Ra­mona) Ram­di­al, who are vis­i­bly ab­sent from UNC’s dai­ly bat­tles, are frus­trat­ed with Kei­th Row­ley’s mis­man­age­ment and don’t know what to do. But the UNC is the most vi­brant Op­po­si­tion par­ty in the Caribbean—no oth­er has such high pub­lic in­ter­face thrice week­ly.”

MP Bar­ry Padarath said he was among the first to re­ceive Khan’s mo­tion from Khan him­self.

“But it’s vac­u­ous and mis­chie­vous. Both Khan and Ram­di­al un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tion last year and since then, haven’t con­tributed to the par­ty’s de­vel­op­ment and re­build­ing in any sig­nif­i­cant way. In­stead, they’ve at­tacked the par­ty, the ex­ec­u­tive and leader with a self-serv­ing in­ter­est,” Padarath said.

“Both must say what they’ve done in mem­bers’ in­ter­est. They and the hand­ful sup­port­ing them have said noth­ing on the high lev­els of crime, cost of liv­ing and mas­sive un­em­ploy­ment. They on­ly found their voice when an elec­tion is up­on us, or they see a po­lit­i­cal op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate di­vi­sion and crit­i­cise UNC. Both should be­have and work to­wards re­mov­ing the PNM—not Kam­la.”

MP Rod­ney Charles added, “It’s an at­tempt to cre­ate mis­chief, calum­ny and Ku­choor. My good friend Fuad and oth­ers are crea­tures of the me­dia and Face­book and have no sub­stan­tial fol­low­ing on the ground.

“There are av­enues to come in­to the par­ty—work hard, get the num­bers and chal­lenge, if you win and peo­ple will fol­low you. If you don’t win, we go with the peo­ple elect­ed. So, un­til peo­ple are ready to do the hard work, they’ll just con­tin­ue be­ing crea­tures of Face­book and the me­dia.”

UNC whip David Lee said mem­bers, the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive and the Par­lia­men­tary Arm re­main in full sup­port of Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He said any re­port/sto­ry to the con­trary “is not on­ly fu­tile but is just ma­li­cious, cow­ard­ly po­lit­i­cal hubris echoed by those who have lost po­lit­i­cal rel­e­vance and val­ue self-in­ter­est above na­tion­al in­ter­est.”

“The Op­po­si­tion Leader con­tin­ues to be loved not on­ly by her par­ty’s mem­ber­ship but by cit­i­zens who val­ue her as the on­ly per­son that could save this na­tion from the so­cio-eco­nom­ic tur­moil it faces,” he added, de­tail­ing her bat­tles for the pub­lic.

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo, added, “There’s no va­can­cy for lead­er­ship. There’s a de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly elect­ed Po­lit­i­cal Leader and na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive. The UNC elect­ed their par­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives and vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her slate. It’s un­for­tu­nate that some who were bad­ly de­feat­ed seem un­able to put their loss be­hind them, and have re­fused the leader’s open of­fer to work with the par­ty to­wards gov­ern­ment.”

MPs Rudy In­dars­ingh, Sad­dam Ho­sein, Rishi Seecher­an, Arnold Ram, Rush­ton Paray, Michelle Ben­jamin and Ravi Rati­ram al­so said they sup­port­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

MPs Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ani­ta Haynes, Rai Rag­bir, Van­dana Mo­hit, Kadi­jah Ameen didn’t an­swer calls.