Akash Sama­roo

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment Dr Fuad Khan is vow­ing to change what he is call­ing a cul­ture of blind loy­al­ty and vic­tim­iza­tion in the UNC.

Khan ad­mits his chances of win­ning on June 26 are very slim due to his lim­it­ed re­sources and cam­paign time to sway opin­ion.

“I have no slate, in fact, I have no gifts to bring, I’m like the lit­tle drum­mer boy at Christ­mas time, I have no ham­pers, I have no food card,” Khan said in an in­ter­view on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew.

Khan said what he is of­fer­ing is a ‘di­rec­tion change’ for the par­ty.

“Where you don’t have to bow down to a star but you can em­brace a smil­ing face and I will bring back those who are be­ing sti­fled and os­tra­cized in the last five years and throw out the vic­tim­iza­tion out of the win­dow.”

The for­mer UNC Health Min­is­ter said the cur­rent leader has sur­round­ed her­self with “yes” peo­ple who blind­ly agree with her.

“In any po­lit­i­cal dis­pen­sa­tion, 99 per cent tell the leader what they want to hear and un­for­tu­nate­ly in the UNC, that 1 per cent has been os­tra­cized by this lead­er­ship.”

Mean­while, an­oth­er for­mer UNC Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, who at­tempt­ed to ri­val Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the last two UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions, said the par­ty is breed­ing a cult men­tal­i­ty.

“You will re­al­ize that every sec­ond, any of those guys has to be prais­ing the leader of the par­ty. They don’t talk nec­es­sar­i­ly about the UNC and what the UNC is do­ing, it’s all about the leader and how great the leader is,” Bharath said dur­ing his in­ter­view on The Morn­ing Brew.

Bharath added that the sys­tem will not al­low any­one but Per­sad- Bisses­sar to win, al­leg­ing that the up­com­ing elec­tion is rigged.

“Mrs Bisses­sar is very like­ly to have a land­slide vic­to­ry on June 26. She may win by even more votes. There will be a lack of trans­paren­cy due to a lack of com­pe­ti­tion be­cause there are few­er eyes look­ing at the process and we know what they are like­ly to be do­ing so she’s like­ly to win.”

Khan, mean­while sup­port­ed that com­ment.

“The chance that I have is not as great as it should be in a free and in­de­pen­dent elec­tion. The vot­er’s list and the mem­ber­ship list have no phone num­bers and the re­sources to get that done is a short pe­ri­od of time. I live in hope and that some­time some­where there is a God above.”

Dr Khan said he was re­cent­ly banned from Face­book and there­fore does not use that plat­form to cam­paign.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Chair of the Elec­tions Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee, Ramesh Per­sad Ma­haraj who said, “I don’t know what they mean by the elec­tion is rigged. The mem­ber­ship list is there for all to see, we can­not for ob­vi­ous rea­sons dis­close mem­bers’ tele­phone num­bers on the vot­ing list. You must know that the Com­mit­tee is very in­de­pen­dent and so am I.”

UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has wished Khan “good luck” on June 26 but stood by the in­tegri­ty of the elec­tion process.

“Our par­ty is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic one and each mem­ber is en­ti­tled if he/she choos­es to con­test po­si­tions. I wish him good luck. There are pro­ce­dur­al rules and an elec­tion man­age­ment com­mit­tee in place for free and fair elec­tions”.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader made light work of her chal­lengers in the last two in­ter­nal elec­tions. In 2020 she com­pre­hen­sive­ly de­feat­ed Bharath with 14,873 votes to Bharath’s 2193 and in 2015 Dr Mooni­lal was her clos­est com­peti­tor get­ting 1,821 votes.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ceived 17,502 votes.

Per­sad- Bisses­sar al­so has nine sit­ting Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment on her Team Star slate, some­thing Khan be­lieves was done to so­lid­i­fy her po­si­tion in light of his in­ten­tion to run for leader.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath be­lieves the UNC will not sup­port Khan’s ‘abra­sive’ ways.

“The peo­ple who ac­tu­al­ly come out to vote are the grass­roots sup­port­ers who live in close prox­im­i­ty to Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and with the cur­rent lead­er­ship and most of the Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) sup­port­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, they will then in­flu­ence their con­stituents to sup­port her. Fuad Khan is no longer a sit­ting MP and does not have that kind of in­flu­ence any­more and that is go­ing to present a prob­lem for him,” said Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath.

Put sim­ply, Ra­goonath be­lieves Per­sad-Bisses­sar is still loved dear­ly by the ma­jor­i­ty of the mem­ber­ship.

“They see her as car­ing and sup­port­ive, Fuad Khan on the oth­er hand can be abra­sive at times and that can rub peo­ple the wrong way.”

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