De­spite the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) los­ing the last two gen­er­al elec­tions with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the helm, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal be­lieves she is the leader to guide the par­ty in­to gov­ern­ment in 2025.

The Oropouche East Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee en­dorsed Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day ahead of the UNC’s De­cem­ber 6 in­ter­nal elec­tions.

At a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Oropouche East Con­stituen­cy Of­fice in Debe yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal ac­knowl­edged Bharath’s ser­vice in the UNC-led Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment be­tween 2010-2015.

He said the com­mit­tee holds no ill-will to­wards any can­di­date, but unan­i­mous­ly chose to sup­port Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

While the UNC lost sev­er­al elec­tions un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lead­er­ship, Mooni­lal said the de­feats were not on­ly his leader’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“Democ­ra­cy re­quires a choice be­tween what is avail­able. When we looked at the per­sons avail­able, it was clear to us, in hav­ing the dis­cus­sion, that Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar has the ex­pe­ri­ence, the ex­per­tise and she can pre­side over the re­build­ing of the par­ty. 

“She can pre­side over the ex­pan­sion of the par­ty, and we give her our sup­port. There is a lot of work to be done, but it is not just the work of Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar alone, it is the work of oth­er per­sons as well,” Mooni­lal said.

He said the ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee ex­am­ined Bharath’s Cur­ricu­lum Vi­tae but opt­ed for Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Mooni­lal is a for­mer deputy po­lit­i­cal leader un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­til 2015 when he con­test­ed the par­ty’s lead­er­ship and lost.

Giv­ing rea­sons for sup­port­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, com­mit­tee chair­man Mil­ton Mathu­ra said Bharath was not a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. It means that if even if he de­feats Per­sad-Bisses­sar in the in­ter­nal elec­tions, he can­not as­sume the role of Op­po­si­tion Leader.

“This mod­el of di­vid­ing the roles of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion and par­ty leader is large­ly un­known in the Com­mon­wealth Caribbean. While not in­tractable, it fu­els di­vi­sion and a dys­func­tion­al par­ty struc­ture that is in­im­i­cal to par­ty uni­ty and co­he­sion in small is­land states.”

Re­gard­ing claims of a rigged elec­tion process made by Bharath and for­mer Food Pro­duc­tion Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj, who has since dropped out the race, Mooni­lal said mem­bers should raise these is­sues be­hind closed doors.

He hopes that in the com­ing days, all mem­bers can meet and work out their con­cerns. He said all can­di­dates must re­mem­ber that fol­low­ing the elec­tions, they still have to work to­geth­er.

On Mon­day, Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein along with the St Au­gus­tine con­stituen­cy came out in sup­port of Per­sad-Bisses­sar.