Rose­marie Sant

There will be a two-way fight for the lead­er­ship of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) be­tween Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan and Sharon Ann Gopaul-Mc­Ni­col.

The two filed their nom­i­na­tion pa­pers be­fore the stip­u­lat­ed dead­line on Mon­day, to run for po­lit­i­cal leader of the par­ty which will be held on No­vem­ber 19.

It means that Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith who had in­di­cat­ed her in­ten­tion to con­test the post of po­lit­i­cal leader is no longer in the run­ning.

Dy­er-Grif­fith’s can­di­da­cy had been chal­lenged by mem­bers of the COP on the grounds that she was no longer a mem­ber of the par­ty by virtue of be­ing a mem­ber and in­ter­im leader of the Al­liance of In­de­pen­dents.

The elec­tion was orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Ju­ly and the date was pushed back to Au­gust but was again de­layed by le­gal ac­tion.

On Au­gust 18, Jus­tice Ricky Rahim sit­ting in the San Fer­nan­do High Court or­dered that the elec­tion be post­poned and that the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive of the par­ty con­sid­ers the mem­ber­ship of peo­ple who ap­plied.

Based on the court or­der the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive of the par­ty met on Oc­to­ber 8 to ad­dress is­sues of mem­ber­ship ap­pli­ca­tions and to set new dates for the elec­tion of a po­lit­i­cal leader. A com­mit­tee was set up to in­ter­view three mem­bers who had ei­ther tak­en up key po­si­tions or formed their own po­lit­i­cal par­ty af­ter leav­ing the COP and were re­quired there­fore to at­tend the spe­cial screen­ing by this com­mit­tee.

The Con­gress said the three were asked to sub­mit a let­ter of res­ig­na­tion from the par­ty they ei­ther joined or formed, af­ter leav­ing the COP and let­ter of ac­cep­tance from the said or­gan­i­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, it said, “all three ap­pli­cants re­fused to at­tend this screen­ing and there­fore, could not be grant­ed mem­ber­ship with­in the Con­gress of the Peo­ple.”

The court, ac­cord­ing to the COP, recog­nised Jamieson Ba­hadur as chair­man, and oth­er mem­bers of the past ex­ec­u­tive who are will­ing to serve un­til such time, as elec­tions are held for the po­lit­i­cal leader and the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive.

In­ter­im ap­point­ments were made to the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive in the per­sons of In­dra Narayans­ingh, Deputy Chair­man (in­ter­im), Zenel Has­san, Sec­re­tary – Fi­nance (in­ter­im) and Sharon Fras­er, Sec­re­tary – Com­mu­ni­ca­tions (in­ter­im).

Both Seep­er­sad-Bachan and Gopaul-Mc­Ni­cols have ex­pressed con­fi­dence that they will win the lead­er­ship.