Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Cu­mu­to Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir, who broke ranks and vot­ed with the PNM Gov­ern­ment in Par­lia­ment last week, will be giv­en due process and an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard and ac­count for his ac­tions, says UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar.

And she’s called on both slates and their sup­port­ers from the par­ty’s re­cent in­ter­nal elec­tion to for­give and move for­ward.

“The MPs who sup­port­ed the oth­er slate are wel­come to con­tin­ue work­ing and their fu­ture ac­tions will de­ter­mine their paths for­ward ... their fu­ture is in their hands. The be­hav­iour and ac­tions of mem­bers will de­cide their pro­gres­sion or re­gres­sion with­in the par­ty,” she said last night dur­ing a meet­ing at the par­ty’s Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.

“I have no in­ter­est in en­gag­ing in any bac­cha­nal with any­one.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a clo­sure of par­ty ranks in prepa­ra­tion for gen­er­al elec­tions.

UNC’s new na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive which was elect­ed on June 15, the Stars team she en­dorsed, was al­so in­stalled.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Star slate re­ceived 77 per cent of the vote while the oth­er slate re­ceived 23 per cent.

“Re­sults are in line with the his­tor­i­cal re­sults of these in­ter­nal elec­tions, sim­i­lar to the 2015 re­sults. It shows the vast ma­jor­i­ty of mem­bers who vot­ed main­tained con­fi­dence in the UNC’s lead­er­ship,” she said.

Rag­bir was part of Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate which chal­lenged the Stars. At last Fri­day’s Par­lia­ment sit­ting, Rag­bir vot­ed with the Gov­ern­ment in favour of the Whistle­blow­er Bill, even though it didn’t re­quire Op­po­si­tion votes for pas­sage and could have been passed with Gov­ern­ment votes alone. Oth­er UP/UNC MPs, in­clud­ing Paray toed the par­ty line.

Last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar showed a clip of Rag­bir laugh­ing with the PNM fol­low­ing the Par­lia­ment vote. She not­ed his “thumbs up” sig­nal to the Gov­ern­ment.

he added, “The Na­tex has on­ly been sworn in tonight so we haven’t cau­cused on the mat­ter. There are process­es out­lined with­in the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion which will at­tend to this mat­ter,” she said.

“MP Rag­bir must be af­ford­ed the due process and this will be done fair­ly ac­cord­ing to our con­sti­tu­tion. He’ll be af­ford­ed an op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard and ac­count for his ac­tions. That’s the process un­der our con­sti­tu­tion, there’s no back­ward and for­ward, no bick­er­ing or bac­cha­nal. The con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for what hap­pens in sit­u­a­tions like this.”

She added, “If his ac­tions were an at­tempt to pro­voke me and the new UNC Na­tex in­to en­gag­ing in some type of bac­cha­nal and in­ternecine war, then his ac­tions were mis­tak­en. If this is sup­posed to be the launch­pad for an­oth­er Team Uni­ty or Ram­jackG type bac­cha­nal, just like those, it will go nowhere. The par­ty has vot­ed in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic elec­tion and is now fo­cused on gen­er­al elec­tions.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she’d seen be­fore where per­sons re­ject­ed by mem­bers be­came bit­ter and turned against mem­bers.

“If you’re hurt and an­gry about re­sults, that’s okay. The con­sti­tu­tion will deal with it in due process. But I have a se­ri­ous prob­lem in­vok­ing God, morals, val­ues and ‘coun­try-first’ nar­ra­tives, which doesn’t fool any­one. It’s be­come a tra­di­tion that when­ev­er per­sons can­not get any­thing more from the par­ty, they sud­den­ly find God, morals, val­ues and love for coun­try,” she said.

“But it’s up to each in­di­vid­ual to de­ter­mine their way for­ward. I’d said to the me­dia - who asked about mov­ing for­ward - that de­pends on the in­di­vid­u­als, those con­test­ing. It’s not up to me, to de­cide - their fu­ture is in their hands. It’s how they con­duct them­selves af­ter the elec­tion will de­ter­mine the way for­ward.”

Gen­er­al elec­tion screen­ing soon

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in all her years in the UNC, this “was the worst, most de­struc­tive cam­paign waged by any slate I’ve ever wit­nessed.”

“How­ev­er, elec­tion re­sults are now of­fi­cial. The time has come for mem­bers and sup­port­ers of all slates to move on to­geth­er from the in­ter­nals for the greater good of the par­ty, and ul­ti­mate­ly, our coun­try. Sup­port­ers of both slates must now work to­geth­er,” she added, not­ing fall­outs over the years in UNC among oth­er lead­ers and the par­ty al­ways sur­vived.

She said screen­ing of gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees be­gins soon and con­sid­er­a­tion will be giv­en to re­open­ing nom­i­na­tions.

Not­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s hint of an elec­tion date com­ing be­fore dawn, she said, “Re­mem­ber: the sun ris­es at dawn, eh.”

She said she didn’t feel elec­tions would be called be­fore Au­gust, since the PM had spo­ken of a de­ci­sion on the re­fin­ery in Au­gust and Gov­ern­ment may al­so want to bring an­oth­er Bud­get.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so pelt­ed Gov­ern­ment with ques­tions on In­di­an busi­ness­man Naveen Jin­dal con­cern­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery deal and any Venezue­lan oil con­nec­tion.