Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

While the term of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar runs un­til June 2028, there is no word yet on the fu­ture of the par­ty’s Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive (Na­tex), whose two-year term ex­pired in June.

Par­ty of­fi­cials con­firmed on Tues­day that the cur­rent UNC ex­ec­u­tive was elect­ed on June 15, 2024, for a two-year term. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was re-elect­ed un­op­posed in June 2025 for a three-year term.

Na­tex of­fi­cials were mum yes­ter­day on whether an in­ter­nal elec­tion will be held. UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo, PRO Kirk Meighoo and gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai did not re­spond to queries on the mat­ter yes­ter­day. Of­fi­cials at the UNC sec­re­tari­at mean­while said they could not say when the Na­tex elec­tion might take place.

Siparia Bor­ough May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo told Guardian Me­dia, “The ques­tion of when Na­tex elec­tions are held is en­tire­ly the po­lit­i­cal leader’s pre­rog­a­tive. It’s up to her. She’ll de­cide when Na­tex elec­tions are held.”

A se­nior UNC of­fi­cial al­so said the Na­tex’s term could be ex­tend­ed, with mem­bers vot­ing on the ex­ten­sion at a meet­ing once the po­lit­i­cal leader ap­proves it.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to a query on the mat­ter yes­ter­day.

The is­sue of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions was a source of ten­sion with­in the par­ty in 2024.
From March that year, for­mer UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, along with sev­er­al then-UNC MPs, in­clud­ing Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, Dr Rai Rag­bir and Rod­ney Charles, and their sup­port­ers, pressed the lead­er­ship to hold elec­tions by June 2024, when they were due.

A rift sub­se­quent­ly de­vel­oped be­tween Paray’s group and the par­ty lead­er­ship, with Per­sad-Bisses­sar even­tu­al­ly an­nounc­ing a date for the polls.

Fol­low­ing the bit­ter­ly con­test­ed elec­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed them as the worst in­ter­nal elec­tions she had ever wit­nessed in the UNC.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar backed the “Star” team, which de­feat­ed Paray’s “Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots” slate by 213,651 votes to 62,186. Paray un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the post of deputy leader, while his team lost all the po­si­tions it con­test­ed.

Paray and four fel­low MPs re­mained es­tranged from the par­ty and were sub­se­quent­ly re­placed as can­di­dates for the April 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Charles re­tired from pol­i­tics, Ram­bal­ly and Rag­bir re­signed from the UNC, while Ram­bal­ly and Haynes-Al­leyne ap­peared on the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s plat­form dur­ing the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

UNC mem­bers in sev­er­al ar­eas have ex­pressed cu­rios­i­ty about whether an­oth­er Na­tex elec­tion will be held. How­ev­er, some mem­bers in Gas­par­il­lo and Debe said they did not ex­pect an elec­tion to be called any­time soon.

“The Gov­ern­ment just get elect­ed — what you want?! More elec­tion again? We done have Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment next year... every­body busy try­ing to run Min­istry with­out mon­ey... no­body go­ing up against them on the Ex­ec­u­tive right now,” sev­er­al mem­bers said.

Some mem­bers in Ca­roni Cen­tral and Oropouche East al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the heavy work­load of MPs David Lee and Mooni­lal, who have to jug­gle their Na­tex re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, par­lia­men­tary du­ties and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties in their front­line min­istries.

A UNC mem­ber from Na­pari­ma ques­tioned the need for an im­me­di­ate in­ter­nal elec­tion.
“Na­tex elec­tion? Why you need that now — if it ent bro­ken, why try to fix it?”

The cur­rent Na­tex po­si­tions and hold­ers are:

Deputy lead­ers: Roodal Mooni­lal, David Lee and Jear­lean John

Chair­man: Dave Tan­coo

Deputy chair­man: Ham­lyn Jailal

Pol­i­cy/Strat­e­gy of­fi­cer: Sad­dam Ho­sein

Ed­u­ca­tion of­fi­cer: Ravi Rati­ram

Re­search of­fi­cer: Sean Sobers

In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions of­fi­cer: Nicholas Mor­ris

Elec­tions of­fi­cer: Arnold Ram

Trea­sur­er: Vil­iana Ra­moutars­ingh

Par­ty or­gan­is­er: Bar­ry Padarath

To­ba­go re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Ken­wyn Philip

North­west re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Eli Zark­our

North­east re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Kadi­jah Ameen

Cen­tral re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Van­dana Mo­hit

South re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive: Shan­ty Boodram