Ke­jan Haynes

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly has with­drawn his can­di­da­cy for Ch­agua­nas West in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, cit­ing con­cerns over what he called the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) in­creas­ing­ly “di­vi­sive racial rhetoric as its cen­tral mes­sage.” He re­mains a mem­ber of the par­ty though.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly said the par­ty’s rhetoric would harm both it­self and so­ci­ety at large.

For years, he said he has tol­er­at­ed “un­pro­fes­sion­al­ism, poor judge­ment, and in­ter­nal dys­func­tion” in the UNC lead­er­ship, hop­ing these is­sues could be re­solved through open di­a­logue. How­ev­er, he said when he sub­mit­ted him­self for screen­ing, he did so in good faith.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, Ram­bal­ly said he be­lieves these prob­lems will re­main un­ad­dressed and the par­ty is “tra­vers­ing a path that can lead it, and our so­ci­ety, to se­vere harm.” He de­nounced racism, big­otry and in­tol­er­ance as a cam­paign strat­e­gy, say­ing he re­fused to par­tic­i­pate in any ef­fort that “ex­ploits the fears and prej­u­dices of our peo­ple for po­lit­i­cal gain.”

Ram­bal­ly crit­i­cised what he called the “in­creas­ing­ly ir­re­spon­si­ble rhetoric” from the UNC leader, warn­ing that it should con­cern all mem­bers of the par­ty’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, MPs, and sen­a­tors. While he saw many in the par­ty as will­ing to “sac­ri­fice their dig­ni­ty and prin­ci­ples in the pur­suit of po­lit­i­cal of­fice,” he said he re­fus­es to do so and is urg­ing the UNC to “aban­don this reck­less and dan­ger­ous ap­proach be­fore ir­repara­ble dam­age is done.”

He de­scribed the na­tion as “at a cross­roads” and called for lead­er­ship that pro­mot­ed “uni­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and vi­sion—not in­flam­ma­to­ry rhetoric and racial an­i­mos­i­ty.” De­spite his with­draw­al, Ram­bal­ly ex­pressed grat­i­tude for get­ting the op­por­tu­ni­ty to serve and said he hoped the UNC could re­cov­er from “these self-in­flict­ed wounds.” He thanked the con­stituents of Ch­agua­nas West, say­ing he would “al­ways car­ry them in his heart.”

Ram­bal­ly’s de­ci­sion comes days af­ter ac­tivist Vic­tor Roberts re­signed from the par­ty’s La Brea con­stituen­cy of­fice and weeks af­ter in­cum­bent MP Rai Rag­bir al­so took a de­ci­sion not to re­con­test the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la seat.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar brushed Ram­bal­ly’s with­draw­al off as “sour grapes over los­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tion.”

“No one is sur­prised by this child­ish or­ches­trat­ed plan to pub­li­cise these res­ig­na­tions every cou­ple days in an at­tempt to dam­age the par­ty ahead of the GE to as­sist the PNM,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“We were well aware of this plan and ex­pect them to con­tin­ue this ridicu­lous­ness. Peo­ple are too smart to fall that sim­ple-mind­ed trick­ery.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Ram­bal­ly and the oth­ers who went against her slate in the in­ter­nal elec­tion as hav­ing no self­less mo­tive but pure­ly per­son­al am­bi­tion.

“In­stead of dis­play­ing pub­lic im­ma­tu­ri­ty, I ad­vise them to sit and con­sid­er why the mem­ber­ship of their own par­ty re­ject­ed them so over­whelm­ing­ly and if they couldn’t get the UNC mem­ber­ship to sup­port them, why would they think na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty sup­port them,” she said.

De­spite this claim, nei­ther Ram­bal­ly nor Roberts ever con­test­ed for po­si­tions in the UNC’s in­ter­nal elec­tions. Rag­bir, how­ev­er, was a mem­ber of Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate in last year’s in­ter­nal elec­tion.