Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

For­mer Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har is back as in­ter­im leader of the par­ty.

He has re­placed in­ter­im leader Kirt Sin­nette and the COP is now ful­ly part of the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance (PA), which in­cludes Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith’s HOPE

Sin­nette con­firmed the move­ments yes­ter­day, while HOPE deputy leader Louis Lee Sing has called for Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Rush­ton Paray and his four oth­er so-called “dis­si­dent” col­leagues to join them.

Grif­fith, who has wel­comed Ra­mad­har back, called on the par­ties in the PA to stand their ground on prin­ci­ples and not let oth­er par­ties abuse them.

Ra­mad­har didn’t an­swer calls on the de­vel­op­ment yes­ter­day.

Ra­mad­har, an at­tor­ney, was COP deputy leader in 2010 and was giv­en the St Au­gus­tine seat by the UNC to con­test in the uni­ty deal COP had with the UNC to form the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship coali­tion.

He was elect­ed St Au­gus­tine MP in 2010 and in 2011 Ra­mad­har was elect­ed COP leader af­ter then-leader Win­ston Dook­er­an didn’t con­test. Ra­mad­har was re-elect­ed MP in 2015. Af­ter bick­er­ing in the COP, how­ev­er, Ra­mad­har re­signed as leader in 2016 and didn’t con­test a seat again. He was suc­ceed­ed as leader by Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan.

Ra­mad­har’s been spot­light­ed re­cent­ly rep­re­sent­ing fam­i­lies in the Paria divers tragedy.

Sin­nette who has been COP in­ter­im leader since 2020, was among po­lit­i­cal par­ty and trade union lead­ers who held coali­tion talks with UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad- Bisses­sar last week.

Yes­ter­day, Sin­nette said the move to bring Ra­mad­har back is geared at re­viv­ing COP’s old base and re-at­tract­ing peo­ple who were in the par­ty at its height. He said he had run his course as in­ter­im leader and ap­proached Ra­mad­har two weeks ago to take over.

Sin­nette added, “He was some­what hes­i­tant to get back in­to it but I re­mind­ed him of his daugh­ter liv­ing in T&T and the state of the coun­try. A week lat­er, he told me he’d take it up.

“Un­der COP’s con­sti­tu­tion, the leader can ap­point a deputy leader, so I ap­point­ed him a deputy leader two days ago (Tues­day). That’s a step up to leader. Then I re­signed the same day and hand­ed over, so he be­came in­ter­im leader due to my res­ig­na­tion,” Sin­nette said.

“I had talks with COP’s ex­ec­u­tive on it weeks ago and every­one agreed. COP’s na­tion­al coun­cil now has to vote and ap­prove his lead­er­ship."

When asked when that will be, he said that's up to Ra­mad­har, who is in charge now.

"We’ve been get­ting good feed­back on him since we sent out word of it be­fore via What­sApp. I think he still brings val­ue to the pol­i­tics.”

Sin­nette said he’d want Ra­mad­har to con­tin­ue the coali­tion talks with Per­sad-Bisses­sar and would in­sist Ra­mad­har in­sist that Grif­fith be part of any coali­tion with the UNC. He said the COP hasn’t fi­nalised any­thing with UNC, as it’s cur­rent­ly fo­cused on “fix­ing “ it­self.

Gary: Par­ties must stand ground on prin­ci­ples

Grif­fith yes­ter­day said Ra­mad­har’s re-en­try was wel­come news.

“I was in Cab­i­net with him and a COP foun­da­tion mem­ber. Prakash will be of im­mense val­ue to as­sist us in set­ting up the prop­er frame­work for al­liance of par­ties to en­ter the next gov­ern­ment,” Grif­fith said.

“He ful­ly un­der­stands the mis­take we made in 2010 to 2015 (in the PP Gov­ern­ment) and he wouldn’t al­low the COP to make the same mis­take twice - he’d have learned from that. What is re­quired from oth­er par­ties is di­a­logue based on mu­tu­al re­spect and not to be abused by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

Grif­fith added, “I’d like all par­ties meet­ing to­geth­er to re­mem­ber three words to en­sure we re­main stead­fast: we need to ‘Stand Your Ground’ in terms of prin­ci­ples and not be ab­sorbed or be used by any po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty.”

HOPE’s Lee Sing said par­ty leader Hamel-Smith was over­seas but said the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance not on­ly com­pris­es COP, HOPE and NTA, but al­so has non- gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions. He said HOPE had meet­ings all over T&T.

“And we’d cer­tain­ly wel­come (UNC Ma­yaro MP) Paray, his en­tire team - and all four UNC MPs who sup­port­ed him - based on the fun­da­men­tal stand they took on their own po­lit­i­cal is­sues,” Lee Sing said.

“We’ve lis­tened to them and recog­nise they have se­ri­ous na­tion­al con­tri­bu­tions to make. We can­not wait un­til their screen­ing...Kam­la could make those de­ci­sions be­fore nom­i­na­tion day. I’d hope Mr Paray and his col­leagues come to us now. I know the big chal­lenge that con­fronts them but time is of the essence,”

Lee Sing said the PA with en­ti­ties is “ce­ment­ed for sure” af­ter two years of talk­ing.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, the UNC must be part of the agen­da - all ships must sail to­geth­er in the same di­rec­tion as an ar­ma­da against PNM,” he said.

“NTA’s Grif­fith must be part of it. We’ve been sit­ting with him as equal part­ner, so ul­ti­mate­ly there must be pro­ce­dure to ap­proach as­sign­ments. We ex­pect him like all oth­ers at any ta­ble - whether with us or UNC - will com­port them­selves in a man­ner that al­lows the kind of ac­tion nec­es­sary for de­mo­c­ra­t­ic re­moval of PNM.”

Lee Sing, added, “We’re ready to talk to UNC when­ev­er they’re ready for se­ri­ous mean­ing­ful di­a­logue but we’re not go­ing to camp on any­body’s doorstep in an­tic­i­pa­tion of an ‘au­di­ence’. The is­sue is: we have to be mind­ful and learn from past na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence, so we don’t re­peat the same mis­takes.”

Lee Singh said HOPE sought talks with Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day and wasn’t suc­cess­ful but still look for­ward to work­ing with her.