Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cu­mo­to/Man­zanil­la Dr Rai Rag­bir has re­vealed that he will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in the UNC's screen­ing process to con­test the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

" It is with deep dis­ap­point­ment that I an­nounce I will not par­tic­i­pate in the UNC’s screen­ing process for re-elec­tion as the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Cu­mu­to/ Man­zanil­la. Af­ter care­ful re­flec­tion, I can no longer align my­self with a par­ty that has aban­doned its prin­ci­ples, re­wards medi­oc­rity, shields those ac­cused of wrong­do­ing and pun­ish­es in­tegri­ty.

I refuse to sub­mit my­self to a screen­ing com­mit­tee that in­cludes in­di­vid­u­als cur­rent­ly charged with wrong­do­ing, em­broiled in court cas­es in­volv­ing mis­man­age­ment of pub­lic funds at the EM­BD, al­leged­ly linked to gang ac­tiv­i­ty and even one in­di­vid­ual who has se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions of hu­man traf­fick­ing to an­swer," he said in a state­ment.

Dr Rag­bir said serv­ing his con­stituents has been the great­est priv­i­lege of his life. 

"But I can no longer serve un­der a lead­er­ship that pri­or­i­tizes per­son­al loy­al­ty over pub­lic ser­vice, a lead­er­ship that sti­fles dis­sent re­jects ac­count­abil­i­ty, and has trans­formed the UNC from a po­lit­i­cal par­ty in­to a per­son­al­i­ty cult de­vot­ed en­tire­ly to the wor­ship of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar," he said.

The MP said last year when he vot­ed in favour of whistle­blow­er leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect pub­lic funds- par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in in­sti­tu­tions like the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion—he was met with hos­til­i­ty, alien­ation, and si­lence. 

"This leg­is­la­tion was about ba­sic ac­count­abil­i­ty, yet ac­count­abil­i­ty is not wel­come in Kam­la’s UNC. Un­der her lead­er­ship, the UNC has be­come a hol­low shell— dri­ven by di­vi­sive rhetoric, emp­ty the­atrics, and re­lent­less in­ter­nal purges. This is no longer the par­ty found­ed by the late Bas­deo Pan­day. Kam­la’s UNC does not tol­er­ate in­de­pen­dent thought. Dis­sent is met with smears, back­room sab­o­tage, and ex­pul­sion.

In­stead of build­ing a team based on com­pe­tence, she has sur­round­ed her­self with syco­phants—yes-men and yes-women whose on­ly qual­i­fi­ca­tion is slave de­vo­tion," he said.

Dr Rag­bir said he will con­tin­ue to fight for equal­i­ty and jus­tice, but 

can­not do so un­der a UNC lead­er­ship, which he said, has lost its moral com­pass and is more in­ter­est­ed in pro­tect­ing the cor­rupt than serv­ing the peo­ple.