Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Rai Rag­bir has bro­ken ranks with his par­ty, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, and vot­ed in favour for the pas­sage of the Whis­tle-Blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill.

Dur­ing the vote at Fri­day's sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Dr Rag­bir was the on­ly Op­po­si­tion mem­ber to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment in amend­ing claus­es with­in the Act “to com­bat cor­rup­tion and oth­er wrong­do­ings, by en­cour­ag­ing and fa­cil­i­tat­ing dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct in the pub­lic and pri­vate sec­tor, to pro­tect per­sons mak­ing those dis­clo­sures from detri­men­tal ac­tion, to reg­u­late the re­ceiv­ing, in­ves­ti­gat­ing or oth­er­wise deal­ing with dis­clo­sures of im­prop­er con­duct and to pro­vide for oth­er mat­ters con­nect­ed there­with.”

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ab­sent from the House dur­ing the vote.

Dr Rag­bir was re­cent­ly iden­ti­fied as one of sev­er­al dis­si­dent mem­bers of the UNC for calls on the par­ty leader to trig­ger the na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. Per­sad-Bisses­sar pre­vi­ous­ly threat­ened to ex­pel par­ty mem­bers who vote against par­ty lines in the Par­lia­ment.

The gov­ern­ment did not need Op­po­si­tion sup­port to pass the bill. It even­tu­al­ly passed 22 for, 15 against and no ab­sten­tions.

When asked to com­ment on his de­ci­sion, Dr Rag­bir said:

"Per­sons must be en­cour­aged to feel con­fi­dent in rais­ing se­ri­ous con­cerns at the ear­li­est op­por­tu­ni­ty when they sus­pect il­le­gal, im­moral or fraud­u­lent ac­tiv­i­ties at the work­place pri­vate or pub­lic. Mak­ing a dis­clo­sure or blow­ing a whis­tle will have reper­cus­sions such as be­ing dis­missed or de­mot­ed in their job. And to add to that the in­di­vid­ual will ex­pe­ri­ence psy­cho-so­cial is­sues [that] need to [be] dealt with. I am at a moral cross­roads where I must align my ac­tions with my val­ues—spir­i­tu­al and moral. Coun­try first."

In a re­sponse to the de­vel­op­ment, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia she was not shocked by Dr Rai Rag­bir's de­ci­sion to vote against par­ty lines.

"Not sur­prised at all,” she said. “For us in the UNC it’s busi­ness as usu­al be­cause I told every­one dur­ing the in­ter­nal cam­paign that some of the dis­si­dents were work­ing with the PNM and would go to the PNM af­ter get­ting re­ject­ed by the mem­ber­ship in the in­ter­nal elec­tions. So said, so done."