Gail Alexan­der

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar seems like­ly to face yet an­oth­er bat­tle for the reins of her par­ty fol­low­ing an­oth­er de­feat by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment in Mon­day’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

The sit­u­a­tion de­vel­oped yes­ter­day with var­i­ous se­nior par­ty mem­bers be­ing di­vid­ed over her fu­ture, with some call­ing for her res­ig­na­tion while oth­ers said they still trust­ed her stew­ard­ship.

Asked yes­ter­day whether the par­ty will be en­gag­ing in suc­ces­sion plan­ning af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar suf­fered an­oth­er de­feat, Haynes said no.

“The UNC has clear in­ter­nal process­es in terms of how the lead­er­ship is se­lect­ed. Un­til then the ques­tion of lead­er­ship does not arise.  We have full con­fi­dence in the po­lit­i­cal leader,” Haynes said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence in San Fer­nan­do called to dis­cuss the par­ty’s call for re­counts in five con­stituen­cies.

Haynes ex­plained that the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions are due next year and sup­port­ers will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote for a new leader if they so de­sired.

But a for­mer UNC MP Fuad Khan and ac­tivist De­vant Ma­haraj be­lieve Per­sad-Bisses­sar should re­sign, adding the re­count bid was fu­tile.

A bit­ter Ma­haraj said, “The lead­er­ship should re­sign and those UNC can­di­dates (who won) are best de­scribed as a kinder­garten class un­able to fight their way out of a pa­per bag.”

Ma­haraj was al­so un­hap­py Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not face sup­port­ers to ad­dress the de­feat.

“In the cir­cum­stances, her Face­book state­ment wasn’t enough. A team is led by a leader and the leader can’t be with­out blame for fail­ure. When you lose, you tra­di­tion­al­ly of­fer your res­ig­na­tion. No such thing here,” he said.

“The re­count won’t pro­duce changed re­sults. It’s the same strat­e­gy UNC used in 2015 with elec­tion pe­ti­tions - which failed. How can a PNM vic­to­ry mar­gin of 2,000-odd votes be seen as a ‘close fig­ure?’ Our La Hor­quet­ta can­di­date, for in­stance, spent a long time work­ing that seat and still lost. When the UNC won San Juan in 2015 by a mar­gin of 500 votes, PNM didn’t seek re­count.’’

He added, “We’ve seen fig­ures show­ing where can­di­dates who re­placed Gan­ga and Ra­mona Ram­di­al ap­par­ent­ly got less votes than they did. Why didn’t our sup­port­ers come out in safe seats? UNC shouldn’t have failed in this elec­tion since this was the most un­pop­u­lar PNM gov­ern­ment. UNC’s been kid­napped by peo­ple with per­son­al in­ter­ests. Mem­bers, if they ever find their back­bone, should re­or­gan­ise the par­ty.’’

Ma­haraj said the lead­er­ship’s fail­ure to con­grat­u­late Row­ley on win­ning was al­so poor and un­gra­cious.

Khan al­so agreed the re­count call was a time-buy­ing ef­fort.

Asked if Per­sad-Bisses­sar was a spent force, Khan replied, “The par­ty’s strate­gies in 2015 and this elec­tion didn’t work - we need a new strate­gist.’’

He said af­ter los­ing two polls the onus is on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to do the cor­rect things for the UNC to sur­vive and “not end up as a chron­ic Op­po­si­tion par­ty.’’

“She (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) al­ways said she need­ed to put youths in charge and this time we might need to put a youth in charge. But the way things were done in the elec­tion lead-up, many UNC stal­warts are no longer there. And the way new­com­ers were hand­picked by UNC’s screen­ing team has left a void on suc­ces­sion - we’re caught be­tween a rock and hard place where lead­er­ship’s con­cerned,’’ Khan said.

“The screen­ing team used a sys­tem to ben­e­fit the present leader. Roodal (Mooni­lal) is a choice but re­cent al­le­ga­tions against him have pro­duced neg­a­tive im­pact. I can’t see any of them tak­ing the lead­er­ship at this point. This is now left to mem­bers to de­cide if to con­tin­ue sup­port­ing her. The time is tru­ly ripe for de­vel­op­ment of a third strong force which will be for equal­i­ty.’’

Khan, who won the San Juan/Barataria seat for the par­ty in 2015, was among those seek­ing uni­ty with oth­er par­ties in 2018.

“If UNC had adopt­ed the ap­proach we sug­gest­ed, PNM would have been in Op­po­si­tion to­day,” Khan said of that ini­tia­tive.

Ex-Ch­agua­nas East MP Fazal Karim said it was dis­turb­ing the par­ty could not over­turn the PNM yet again.

“I’m very dis­ap­point­ed in the re­sults af­ter all the chal­lenges the pub­lic went through un­der PNM. I’m sure the UNC will do in­tro­spec­tion on what was done and what has to be done ahead,” Karim said.

Ex-Cou­va North MP Ra­mona Ram­di­al, who’d won that seat with 13,800 votes in 2015, added, “The par­ty needs to re­flect where it is, what was done and analyse af­ter re­count re­sults.”