One day af­ter found­ing mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) Wen­dell Ever­s­ley threat­ened “swift le­gal ac­tion” over the elec­tion of an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader or po­lit­i­cal leader, par­ty mem­bers se­lect­ed Prakash Ra­mad­har to be at the helm.  

In a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day, the COP said Ra­mad­har’s ap­point­ment was of­fi­cial­ly rat­i­fied at its na­tion­al coun­cil meet­ing held on Sat­ur­day night at the Man­dela Hall, Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence. The re­lease said it was the first na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing held in sev­er­al years. 

This is the sec­ond time Ra­mad­har has led the par­ty. He suc­ceed­ed the par­ty’s first leader Win­ston Dook­er­an in 2011 and ob­tained a sec­ond term in 2014, de­feat­ing for­mer chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who was sup­port­ed by Dook­er­an. Ra­mad­har re­signed as leader in 2016. 

Ra­mad­har was ap­point­ed in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader by out­go­ing leader Kirt Sinette. This cre­at­ed ten­sion in the par­ty as mem­bers ar­gued this was against the con­sti­tu­tion. That ap­point­ment was lat­er re­scind­ed. 

Yes­ter­day’s me­dia re­lease said Ra­mad­har was the re­sound­ing win­ner, achiev­ing 94 per cent of the votes. 

“In a re­sound­ing vote of con­fi­dence, 94% of coun­cil mem­bers over­whelm­ing­ly sup­port­ed Mr Ra­mad­har’s lead­er­ship, with 33 votes in favour, 1 against, and 1 ab­sten­tion.” 

Ra­mad­har promised to re­build the par­ty, the re­lease said, with his “blood sweat and tears as he looks to­wards the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.” 

The re­lease said Ra­mad­har reaf­firmed his com­mit­ment “to the ideals and mis­sion of the COP” and that him be­ing leader is not just a man­date but a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to unite and strength­en the par­ty for the ben­e­fit of the coun­try.