SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Prakash Ra­mad­har be­lieves that his re­turn as leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), on the eve of the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, could save the 19-year-old par­ty from po­lit­i­cal bur­ial. 

Since as­sum­ing the po­si­tion, Ra­mad­har has faced at­tacks from peo­ple with­in the COP, some of whom even threat­ened le­gal ac­tion and be­gan wran­gling over the par­ty’s lead­er­ship.

On Wednes­day, Ra­mad­har, a for­mer St Au­gus­tine MP and le­gal af­fairs min­is­ter in the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, said he be­lieved in the “Lazarus syn­drome,” re­fer­ring to the COP that was po­lit­i­cal­ly dead but whose life has since been re­stored.

“It (COP) was not com­plete­ly dead ... it was close to it. I think we came in the nick of time. You know every­thing in this life; some­times the most im­por­tant thing is tim­ing. I be­lieve in the good work of the Bible that even when one is writ­ten off if there is a holy spir­it, a good spir­it, a light, that life could be re­stored. Now that there is a new breath, light, and re­vival, they scream and com­plain bit­ter­ly,” Ra­mad­har told the Sun­day Guardian dur­ing an in­ter­view at the COP’s new head­quar­ters in Curepe.

Hav­ing re­newed hope for the par­ty, Ra­mad­har is gear­ing up to form a coali­tion with the UNC led by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

It would be the COP’s third merg­er with the PP.

“Coali­tion is a must,” he said. “It’s the on­ly way to de­feat the PNM.”

The unit­ed front must be done swift­ly, he said.

Last Sat­ur­day, Ra­mad­har ad­mit­ted that the COP was not bound by a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing with Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance and HOPE led by Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, which they had en­tered in­to.

Grif­fith crit­i­cised Ra­mad­har for an­nounc­ing the MOU with­out first con­tact­ing the oth­er par­ties.

Ra­mad­har said he was en­cour­aged by the par­ty’s for­mer po­lit­i­cal leader Kirk Sin­nette and cur­rent gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ralph Hart to re­turn to the COP to help re­build and strength­en it.

When the COP con­test­ed the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion un­der its founder Win­ston Dook­er­an it gar­nered 148,345 votes but did not win any seats.

In the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion, 467 peo­ple vot­ed for the COP, which Ra­mad­har de­scribed as an em­bar­rass­ment.

He blamed “unin­spired lead­er­ship” for the poor vot­er turnout.

“When I saw the num­bers, it was painful for me,” he ad­mit­ted.

Elect­ed po­lit­i­cal leader in 2011, Ra­mad­har re­signed from the COP in 2016 af­ter some mem­bers be­gan dom­i­nat­ing the par­ty’s con­ver­sa­tion.

He said those voic­es be­came a de­struc­tive con­dem­na­tion.

In the years that fol­lowed, Ra­mad­har, an at­tor­ney, said the COP found it­self “in a hor­ri­ble de­cline.”

There were no of­fices, phones, mem­ber­ship forms, or per­for­mance re­ports.

In­ter­nal elec­tions and ex­ec­u­tive meet­ings were not held in months.

Mem­bers grew dis­il­lu­sioned.

“They breached al­most every con­sti­tu­tion­al rule in the par­ty. We are now re-con­sti­tu­tion­al­is­ing the par­ty.”

On the COP’s data­base, Ra­mad­har said there were over “tens of thou­sands” of reg­is­tered mem­bers, but they are now try­ing to de­ter­mine the ac­tu­al fig­ure.

Ra­mad­har said peo­ple who tried to run the par­ty nev­er did any work.

“So, the nois­es that you hear are the ex­trac­tion of the poi­son of this par­ty. You have to ask these trou­ble­mak­ers what is their am­bi­tion. What is their pur­pose, and what is their mo­tive? What we are hear­ing are screams of death for those who de­ter­mined that the COP should have been sup­pressed and to be muf­fled.”

Ra­mad­har said no one was per­fect.

“But if they want per­fec­tion, find it here for me.”

He said peo­ple have been open­ing their mouths and say­ing things.

“I have some of the best lawyers al­ready lined up. I am not mak­ing a threat. I am mak­ing a state­ment. For those who wish to open their mouths and speak lib­er­al­ly, they say free speech can some­times be very ex­pen­sive.”

The for­mer MP said those who ac­cused him of vi­o­lat­ing the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion should ask them­selves what have they done to keep the COP rel­e­vant, alive, and ac­tive.

With the help of its deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Im­ran Ali, Ra­mad­har has start­ed draft­ing the COP’s 2025 man­i­festo, de­vel­op­ing poli­cies and pro­grammes and re­build­ing its sup­port base.

“I ex­pect we will get peo­ple to come in and fi­nance slow­ly but sure­ly. It has start­ed. We want that to ac­cel­er­ate.”

In the com­ing weeks, Ra­mad­har said the par­ty will de­cide how many seats it will con­test in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

“We don’t have the re­sources to shoot as a scat­ter­shot. We are laser-fo­cused on sev­er­al of the seats.”

Asked if the UNC can win the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion, Ra­mad­har was op­ti­mistic.

“Ab­solute­ly! With cred­i­bil­i­ty, con­sis­ten­cy, and the right can­di­dates. We’ve had chal­lenges be­fore, and I am con­fi­dent these chal­lenges will fall very quick­ly. Win­ning is a must. If we don’t, then some­thing has to be hor­ri­bly wrong in this coun­try that the peo­ple’s spir­its are so bro­ken and de­monised by those who hold pow­er. This is a do-or-die for the coun­try’s ben­e­fit. If we do not suc­ceed, this coun­try will be­come a one-par­ty state. That is what dic­ta­tor­ship ful­ly is.”

Ra­mad­har de­fend­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who he said was of­ten “de­monised” by the PNM and their trolls on al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion. 

“They would say I am de­fend­ing Kam­la, but I have to. For every­thing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) did, it was de­fined as cor­rupt. There is cor­rup­tion. There has been. There was. So they put it out there that there was cor­rup­tion. I am sure in every gov­ern­ment since the for­ma­tion of mankind there has been cor­rup­tion.”

Even though the PP re­spond­ed to the cor­rup­tion claims by es­tab­lish­ing the pro­cure­ment leg­is­la­tion, Ra­mad­har said, the neg­a­tiv­i­ty con­tin­ued to spread, lead­ing the par­ty to lose the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Asked if the PP learnt from their mis­takes, Ra­mad­har replied, “I don’t know; I ex­pect that they must have.”

Ra­mad­har al­so trained his guns on the PNM, stat­ing that T&T is “in a state of a deficit by a gov­ern­ment that on­ly finds ex­cus­es.”

He said the PNM un­der Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley spent bil­lions of dol­lars in the last nine years and had noth­ing to show for it.

Ris­ing crime, low un­em­ploy­ment, the sale of the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, in­fla­tion, busi­ness­es shut­ting down, a forex short­age, and peo­ple mi­grat­ing, Ra­mad­har said, have brought this coun­try to its knees.

“A lot of the mon­ey is now pay­ing in­ter­est on loans. As a ge­ol­o­gist, our Prime Min­is­ter should know you can’t get blood out of stone.”

He said while the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to boast of its great vi­sion, the pop­u­la­tion is bur­dened with pay­ing tax­es for every­thing.

“Every­thing they can tax, they will. A gov­ern­ment must not look to op­press and sup­press its pop­u­la­tion. They seem not to care.”

Ra­mad­har said T&T was head­ing down a path of Haiti, which is ex­plod­ing with a wave of gun vi­o­lence and crime.

“Every in­sti­tu­tion of this coun­try has been com­pro­mised, if not de­mol­ished.”

How his­to­ry was cre­at­ed

His­to­ry was cre­at­ed on April 21, 2010, when the UNC, led by Per­sad-Bisses­sar, signed an ac­cord with the COP, To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, and Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee, paving the way for a uni­fied en­ti­ty called the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship (PP) to fight the rul­ing PNM gov­ern­ment in the May 24, 2010 polls.

That union pro­pelled the PP to a 29-vic­to­ry against the PNM’s 12 seats.

The UNC cap­tured 21 seats, COP six, and TOP two.

The con­stituen­cies of Ari­ma, D’Abadie/O’Meara, Lopinot/Bon Air West, San Fer­nan­do West, Tu­na­puna, and St Au­gus­tine went in­to the hands of the COP, which gar­nered 61,222 votes.

The St Au­gus­tine seat was won by Ra­mad­har, who net­ted 15,166 votes.

Dook­er­an, who cap­tured the Tu­na­puna seat and was ap­point­ed fi­nance min­is­ter, re­signed as COP leader in May 2011, fol­low­ing an emer­gency meet­ing with the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tives.

He promised to of­fer him­self when the COP held its in­ter­nal elec­tions the fol­low­ing month.

Dook­er­an backed down from the elec­tion race, and Ra­mad­har was vot­ed the new leader af­ter chal­leng­ing con­tenders Anil Roberts, Ver­non De Li­ma, and Nali­ni Di­al.

Faced with in­ter­nal con­flicts and chal­lenges, calls were made by par­ty mem­bers for Ra­mad­har to step down in 2013.

Among the callers was Ra­mad­har’s broth­er Kishore Ra­mad­har, the COP’s sec­re­tary for ed­u­ca­tion and re­search, who blamed his sib­ling for de­stroy­ing the par­ty and the prin­ci­ples it stood for.

Ra­mad­har (K) al­so felt the COP should re­move it­self from the PP.

Ra­mad­har re­fused to budge.

The COP re­mained a part­ner with the frag­ment­ed PP in the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, putting up eight can­di­dates.

This time around the PNM won 23 seats to the UNC’s 18.

Re­elect­ed for the St Au­gus­tine seat with 12,606 votes, Ra­mad­har was the lone COP MP on the Op­po­si­tion bench. 

With­in hours of Ra­mad­har’s vic­to­ry, the COP’s youth arm called on him to step down, stat­ing that many com­men­ta­tors re­ferred to the par­ty as Con­gress of the Per­son.

Not long af­ter, Ra­mad­har threw in the tow­el.

Af­ter serv­ing his sec­ond term, Ra­mad­har bowed out of pol­i­tics.

In the 2020 elec­tion, the UNC fought alone and lost again.

The COP con­test­ed four seats, net­ting 467 votes—a far cry from the pop­u­lar­i­ty and over­whelm­ing sup­port it gen­er­at­ed in 2006.

An­a­lyst: Al­liances crit­i­cal for up­com­ing elec­tion

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad stat­ed that if the COP and UNC forms an al­liance, Ra­mad­har would need to demon­strate his abil­i­ty to at­tract sub­stan­tial sup­port, par­tic­u­lar­ly from COP vot­ers or the third-force vot­ers who refuse to back ei­ther the PNM or UNC.

Ram­per­sad re­called that in 2007, the COP reached its peak with over 148,000 votes. “But they were strug­gling un­til the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship re­vived them. Dr Dook­er­an had open­ly stat­ed that, thanks to the UNC, the COP man­aged to sur­vive.”

De­spite its highs and lows as a third force, the COP has faced chal­lenges, she not­ed. “They don’t con­trol any spe­cif­ic con­stituen­cy, which is the prob­lem. What re­mains un­cer­tain is whether they can gal­vanise more sup­port in this elec­tion.”

Ram­per­sad ac­knowl­edged that there is a seg­ment of the elec­torate dis­il­lu­sioned with both the UNC and PNM, who tend to sup­port third-force par­ties. How­ev­er, she point­ed out that sev­er­al third forces are com­pet­ing, and it’s un­clear which one is the most vi­able.

She said these al­liances will be cru­cial in de­ter­min­ing the elec­tion’s out­come.