Akash Sama­roo

Al­though Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is yet to speak on the is­sue, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lysts are of­fer­ing dif­fer­ing views on how the par­ty could ben­e­fit from the pos­si­ble re­turn of for­mer stal­warts.

This week saw Jack Warn­er, Dr Fuad Khan and Vas­ant Bharath all ex­press­ing a will­ing­ness to con­test a seat un­der the UNC’s ban­ner in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

But po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj be­lieves while they can bring val­ue to the par­ty, it would be best served in a back­ground and men­tor­ship role.

“I be­lieve the ex­pe­ri­ence of these gen­tle­men can bring po­lit­i­cal ben­e­fit in the cam­paign when it comes to or­ga­niz­ing vot­er sup­port. How­ev­er, whether you wish to have these gen­tle­men run in a par­tic­u­lar con­stituen­cy may not be strate­gi­cal­ly the best way for­ward if the UNC wants to cre­ate a new im­age for the par­ty in the next gen­er­al elec­tion,” Ram­samooj posit­ed.

Ram­samooj con­tends that the men could al­so en­tice the swing vot­er or the non-vot­er to give the UNC their sup­port if they as­sist­ed a young and vi­brant UNC can­di­date.

“They would have a net­work of sup­port­ers in their re­spec­tive con­stituen­cies that can main­tain the ex­ist­ing UNC po­lit­i­cal base which along with a new type of can­di­date can bring first-time vot­ers to the polls. Re­mem­ber, you are build­ing a coali­tion at the con­stituen­cy lev­el that would be your ex­ist­ing and po­ten­tial new vot­er base,” Ram­samooj added.

Jack Warn­er has stat­ed his in­ten­tion to be the can­di­date for Ch­agua­nas West, a seat he fa­mous­ly wres­tled away from the UNC in 2013 for the then In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) which he formed.

But Ram­samooj said if Warn­er was adamant about be­ing a UNC can­di­date, he should fo­cus on bring­ing home a mar­gin­al seat.

“Whether or not some­one like Jack Warn­er con­sid­ers a dif­fer­ent con­stituen­cy, such as La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro can per­haps make a po­lit­i­cal dif­fer­ence in that con­stituen­cy. Ch­agua­nas West is ir­rel­e­vant. Who­ev­er you put in Ch­agua­nas West will win, what you need is some­one who could win a seat or two that is cur­rent­ly not in their po­lit­i­cal col­umn,” Ram­samooj said.

But Dr Shane Mo­hammed said it would be fool­hardy to dis­count the im­pact the men could have as can­di­dates, giv­en their na­tion­al grav­i­tas.

“Dr Khan has a pris­tine track record in Barataria/San Juan. One that is un­beat­en, and he kept it from the hands of the PNM there­fore when a man has that acu­men be­hind his name he is not to be dis­card­ed,” Mo­hammed con­tend­ed.

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst al­so of­fered more names which he said could bol­ster the UNC’s ap­peal.

“Why don’t we think about peo­ple like Car­los John, Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, why not?” he ques­tioned.

Mo­hammed said this next elec­tion promised to be a very close one and there­fore the UNC need­ed all hands on deck, adding that the cur­rent cadre of UNC MPs may not com­mand pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence.

“They will build pub­lic trust, the con­fi­dence of the peo­ple, be able to at­tract cross-sec­tion­al ap­peal and there­fore that mar­riage be­tween the politi­cians who are ex­pe­ri­enced who have the abil­i­ty to pro­vide sup­port to the par­ty with knowl­edge and an abil­i­ty to know how to run a gov­ern­ment is im­por­tant while coach­ing young peo­ple on how the pol­i­tics work, how the par­lia­ment works, and how ef­fec­tive they can be in a gov­ern­ment,” Mo­hammed posit­ed.

The po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst said Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be wise to bring them back, as the PNM found suc­cess with a sim­i­lar move.

“It will al­so be viewed by the peo­ple that Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not on­ly se­ri­ous but she walks the talk and she is able to see how valu­able past mem­bers can be, they are very much equiv­a­lent to those in the PNM like Mrs Pen­ny Beck­les, Amery Browne and oth­ers who went back in­to the par­ty. So, there could be no harm to the par­ty by bring­ing in those who have worked and served be­fore, those who I would call the back­bone of the par­ty,” he said.

But Dr Win­ford James is of a dif­fer­ent opin­ion.

James told Guardian Me­dia that the UNC’s sup­port­ers may be wary of the old guard re­turn­ing.

“I think Vas­ant (Bharath) is ca­pa­ble, but I don’t know how well the UNC crowd likes those guys be­cause they seem to be op­por­tunis­tic with the way they are mov­ing. I don’t know if they came out in sup­port of Per­sad-Bisses­sar when they had in­ter­nal elec­tions. But now they seem em­bold­ened by Jack (Warn­er) and now they want to come back,” he said.

He even pos­tu­lat­ed a rea­son as to why Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not yet pub­licly re­spond­ed to their of­fer.

“Kam­la can­not be hap­py with per­ceived op­por­tunism even if they had po­lit­i­cal val­ue in the past.

“These guys have had their po­lit­i­cal val­ue erod­ed through no fault of their own and now be­cause they have the scent of elec­tions, they are prob­a­bly think­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar does not have can­di­dates of that nec­es­sary strength and she may take them on,” James spec­u­lat­ed.

James said while Warn­er can pos­si­bly show his worth more in a mar­gin­al seat, he again ques­tioned what po­lit­i­cal val­ue the for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter can still bring to the par­ty.

“They are not go­ing to lose Ch­agua­nas West, so the UNC does not need to use Jack Warn­er as an elec­toral weapon. In any event, Jack is head­ing for 80 so he is not as vi­brant. I don’t think he can pull the crowd like he did in 2013,” James said.

The UNC is yet to con­duct its screen­ing process for can­di­dates. Chair­man Dave Tan­coo told Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day that a date for that will be set when the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive meets in the com­ing days.