Gail Alexan­der

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress lost St Joseph by on­ly 800 votes in gen­er­al elec­tion and if lead­er­ship chal­lenger Vas­ant Bharath had been as­sist­ing and every­one was to­geth­er, the con­stituen­cy might have be­come UNC's 20th seat says Neil Go­sein.

Go­sine, a can­di­date on the Star slate of in­cum­bent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, spoke at a Cou­va South meet­ing last Sun­day, as the UNC's elec­tion ap­proach­es on Sun­day.

Speak­ers at­tacked Bharath and for­mer Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al, who was tar­get­ed by her suc­ces­sor Ravi Rati­ram.

Go­sein said in 2020 "we didn’t see Bharath in St Joseph. We were still look­ing for him but he nev­er came out to as­sist but we heard he went to oth­er ar­eas – like Moru­ga, where he was mak­ing pineap­ple chow.”

“We lost by on­ly 800 votes, If he had come out with us in 2002 – I doubt it though – and had gone to some of those in St Joseph ar­eas, it might have made a bit of a dif­fer­ence. Eight hun­dred is a small num­ber, with every­one putting in an ef­fort to­geth­er, we might have been the 20th seat for the UNC.”

Dami­an Ly­der said the UNC need­ed a strong leader, as the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment was rob­bing cit­i­zens of their rights.

"We’re wit­ness­ing hap­pen­ing live in our faces where there are Venezue­lans walk­ing in our coun­try dai­ly who have more rights than our own cit­i­zens. They’re com­ing by the hun­dreds and thou­sands and giv­en rights to stay while our cit­i­zens are left lan­guish­ing in for­eign lands.”

He said if peo­ple want­ed to be UNC leader they had to work for it like Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who, in the 2010 par­ty polls against Bas­deo Pan­day,"didn't cry and whim­per about who was in charge of the ex­ec­u­tive. These fel­las just want to walk in and take lead­er­ship - what Vas­ant Bharath and his slate do to earn lead­er­ship?

"Where were they in 2020 when we need­ed then the most. We walked St Joseph, sweat and rain, he was shel­ter­ing in a pineap­ple patch in Moru­ga - what he was do­ing there when we UNC had an elec­tion to win. I hope he don't sink with the cap­tain of the Sink­ing ship (Gyp­sy)!"

Rati­ram said he'd called Ram­di­al to as­sist af­ter get­ting the can­di­da­cy and he claimed she said she was heart­bro­ken and need­ed time. He ac­cused her of "send­ing she staff to or­gan­ise protest" and she'd "stage-man­aged" protests against him but he still won the seat.

Bar­ry Padarath said those want­i­ng a Pan­day or Bharath to lead the par­ty must un­der­stand Per­sad-Biss­esar won't "para­chute" peo­ple in at the top and they had to work their way from the bot­tom up. He called for Bharath to say if his al­leged "be­hav­iour" in Ch­agua­nas West and St Joseph had cost him those ar­eas. Padarath re­peat­ed al­le­ga­tions about of­fices there be­ing oc­cu­pied "by peo­ple do­ing Lord know what" when Bharath was co-or­di­na­tor

Sean Sobers said Per­sad-Bisses­sar's con­nec­tive­ness and moth­er fig­ure im­age was why she was so suc­cess­ful. Nicholas Mor­ris said mem­bers couldn't sup­port a per­son for leader who didn't sit in Par­lia­ment. Eli Za­k­our asked Bharath, "What have you done sir for T&T?"