Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Days be­fore the nom­i­na­tion dead­line, the UNC’s three in­cum­bent deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are yet to sig­nal their in­ten­tion to de­fend their posts in the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions days be­fore the nom­i­na­tion dead­line.

The po­si­tions cur­rent­ly held by Dr Roodal Mooni­lal, Jear­lean John and David Lee are be­ing chal­lenged by mem­bers of a slate called The Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots head­ed by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray. Paray has in­di­cat­ed that he along with Tabaquite MP Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir have thrown their hats in­to the race for the June 15 na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

Dur­ing an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Mooni­lal in­di­cat­ed that he had fur­ther de­lib­er­a­tions to con­duct be­fore firm­ing up his de­ci­sion.

“I am still in con­sul­ta­tions with con­stituents and col­leagues on the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and my par­lia­men­tary col­leagues as well. I ex­pect to make a de­ci­sion in the next few days. I al­so con­sult as well with re­li­gious ad­vis­ers and those per­sons in the con­stituen­cy as well as el­ders and ex­pe­ri­enced per­sons who give me guid­ance,” he said.

In the par­ty’s 2022 in­ter­nal elec­tions, Mooni­lal suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the post un­der Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate. Mooni­lal, how­ev­er, hint­ed that his­to­ry may re­peat it­self.

“A de­ci­sion would be made in a few days and I as­sure you that the stars will be in align­ment.”

Jear­lean John opt­ed to keep her cards on her fu­ture role in the par­ty close to her chest.

“You’ll have to wait, Sat­ur­day is just a few days away.”

When con­tact­ed, David Lee al­so said he had not yet de­cid­ed whether or not he would be de­fend­ing his ex­ec­u­tive po­si­tion in the par­ty.

Bharath on in­ter­nal elec­tions: It’s a sham

Mean­while, for­mer min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, who pre­vi­ous­ly con­test­ed the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions, said he has opt­ed to sit the lat­est one out. He said he does not have much con­fi­dence in the elec­tion process.

“I don’t think that these par­ties have much rel­e­vance in Trinidad and To­ba­go and to its rel­e­vance and for that rea­son, I have cho­sen to stay out of any in­ter­nal elec­tion which is by it­self a sham,” he said while speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day.

Back in 2020, Bharath un­suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the lead­er­ship po­si­tion. He con­tend­ed the process of main­tain­ing in­ter­nal par­ty democ­ra­cy re­mains com­pro­mised.

“The process is flawed be­cause it is com­plete­ly con­trolled by the ex­ist­ing lead­er­ship of the par­ty and where you have this lev­el of self-serv­ing then they ob­vi­ous­ly are go­ing to at­tempt to main­tain the sta­tus quo, the prob­lem is that it is not a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic process,” he added.

Bharath said the odds against Paray’s slate are al­ready high.

“The tragedy is peo­ple like him, be­cause the kind of pol­i­tics we prac­tice in the par­ty will be screened out if he los­es the in­ter­nal elec­tions and then he be­comes con­signed to the po­lit­i­cal dust­bin as far as the UNC is con­cerned,” he said.

But UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo said the par­ty un­der Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­vel­oped and im­proved from when Bharath was in­volved.

“The UNC in­ter­nal elec­tions is be­ing con­duct­ed by an Elec­tions Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee com­pris­ing a group of ex­pe­ri­enced pro­fes­sion­al in­di­vid­u­als un­der the guid­ance of se­nior at­tor­ney Dar­rell Al­la­har. The UNC has a long-es­tab­lished struc­ture for the con­duct of elec­tions in­clud­ing the pub­li­ca­tion of a rules man­u­al, code of con­duct etc,” Tan­coo said.