KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er

@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is now be­ing chal­lenged by Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray to call the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Paray, in an ap­par­ent pow­er play, pub­licly de­mand­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar call the Na­tex elec­tion when it’s due in June.

Dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at the Cou­va Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce Con­fer­ence Hall, Paray said, “I want to make a clar­i­on call to all of my col­leagues in our beloved par­ty to take a stand for what is right … We are all unit­ed in a com­mon cause … We are de­mand­ing that the lead­er­ship of our par­ty re­spect the voice of our mem­bers.”

Paray said there are sev­er­al prob­lems the par­ty needs to ad­dress in or­der to move for­ward and if an in­ter­nal elec­tion is not called, it will not be able to de­feat the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and suf­fer a third con­sec­u­tive loss in the gen­er­al elec­tions.

Paray be­lieves it is time for the par­ty to re­fresh it­self, even if that means tak­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar off the throne.

Asked if his end goal is to be the new UNC leader, Paray said, “I am very well ca­pa­ble and com­pe­tent to oc­cu­py any post that is of­fered to me based on my abil­i­ty and tal­ent. If the mem­ber­ship feels that my abil­i­ty and tal­ent could put me in any tal­ent, then I will ac­cept.”

On whether he was con­fi­dent Per­sad-Bisses­sar can steer the par­ty to vic­to­ry when the gen­er­al elec­tion is called and re­turn as T&T prime min­is­ter, he said, “That is not for me to de­cide. The mem­ber­ship, which gives di­rec­tion, will de­cide if any­body re­mains or goes, be­comes the best or not. They will make that de­ci­sion. That is not my de­ci­sion.”

The elec­tion for UNC leader is due in 2025.

The cur­rent UNC ex­ec­u­tive fea­tures Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John, Oropouche East MP Roodal Mooni­lal and Pointe-a-Pierre MP David Lee as deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers.

Oropouche West MP Dave Tan­coo is chair­man and St Au­gus­tine MP Khadi­jah Ameen is vice chair.

Thus far, on­ly Na­pari­ma MP Rod­ney Charles and Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Rai Rag­bir have sup­port­ed Paray’s call.

How­ev­er, Paray be­lieves it is on­ly a mat­ter of time un­til oth­ers join in.

When Guardian Me­dia asked who else was sup­port­ing him, Paray said, “They are all sup­port­ing me. Every one of them. I’m not sure who wants to say it now, but I’m sure over time they will say it.”

But whether he has sup­port or not, Paray be­lieves he has to do the no­ble thing for the par­ty, even if it means com­mit­ting po­lit­i­cal sui­cide.

He said, “I got a call from one of my col­leagues. He said to me, ‘You have a long and bright fu­ture in pol­i­tics. You’re a good man. You’re a de­cent man, but what you are do­ing is com­mit­ting po­lit­i­cal sui­cide’.” So my re­sponse to him was that, that may very well be the case. And per­haps af­ter to­day, I may very well be an out­cast as well. But here was the op­tion pre­sent­ed to me, I must stay silent.”

He added, “I al­so told him if my one voice is me com­mit­ting po­lit­i­cal sui­cide, then the si­lence of every one of you is com­mit­ting po­lit­i­cal geno­cide be­cause we are putting at risk the fu­ture of hun­dreds of thou­sands of sup­port­ers who have found a home at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, and we will not al­low that.”

There were about 100 sup­port­ers present at yes­ter­day’s me­dia con­fer­ence.

Fight­ing a lost cause

How­ev­er, not every­one with­in the par­ty is on the same page as Paray, at least not pub­licly, with some say­ing a call for a na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion is pre­ma­ture.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Barataria/San Juan MP Sad­dam Ho­sein said, “Cur­rent­ly, we have one leader and that leader is Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.”

Sim­i­lar­ly, Tan­coo said, “As chair­man of the par­ty, I can hon­est­ly say with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive has not even con­sid­ered this mat­ter yet and the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion is not due for sev­er­al months. As a re­sult of that, this en­tire ques­tion and is­sue that is be­ing raised is not even rel­e­vant at this point.”

And for­mer Op­po­si­tion MP Fuad Khan, who has been a mem­ber of the par­ty for many years, be­lieves Paray’s is com­mit­ting po­lit­i­cal sui­cide.

“Rush­ton Paray is say­ing the cor­rect things to build the par­ty, sim­i­lar to what I was say­ing when I went up against Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar two years ago. How­ev­er, when you call an in­ter­nal elec­tion, it is so ma­nip­u­lat­ed and it’s ba­si­cal­ly de­signed to keep Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and that Na­tex who sup­ports her full-time in of­fice, so Rush­ton is knock­ing against a good door, but he is go­ing to get elim­i­nat­ed be­cause Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, once she is the po­lit­i­cal leader, will not call in­ter­nal elec­tions. And, if she calls the in­ter­nal elec­tions, it is go­ing to be ma­nip­u­lat­ed. It’s not go­ing to be free and fair, the same thing that hap­pened to Bas­deo Pan­day, and Rush­ton Paray is go­ing to lose, and she is go­ing to win by padded votes by up to about 8,000 to 10,000.”

Grif­fith: Not my busi­ness

Mean­while, con­tact­ed on the ap­par­ent pow­er strug­gle in the UNC yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith said it doesn’t mat­ter to him who leads the par­ty.

“It doesn’t mat­ter to me who is there. That is not my busi­ness or pref­er­ence … What we would like to see is who­ev­er is the po­lit­i­cal leader, who­ev­er is in that na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive, has the ma­tu­ri­ty to un­der­stand why po­lit­i­cal par­ties are formed is to win and to get in gov­ern­ment and the on­ly way that can be achieved, even from the UNC’s per­spec­tive, is to recog­nise and re­spect that bridge con­stituen­cy of those oth­er par­ties that have seen the UNC in gov­ern­ment be­fore.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so reached out to Sen­a­tor Jear­lene John and Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der yes­ter­day but re­ceived no re­spons­es up to press time.