United National Congress leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar got 11,556 votes and challenger Dr Fuad Khan received 644 in last Sunday’s UNC National Executive election.
This is according to the preliminary results of last Sunday’s party election. It was sent by UNC election team chairman Ramesh Persad-Maharaj on Tuesday. He’d said there was a low voter turnout due to the rains.
Persad-Bissessar received less votes in this leadership election than she received in the 2020 leadership election, where she was unsuccessfully challenged by Vasant Bharath. In the 2020 election, she received 14,873 votes and Bharath 2,193.
In the 2017 UNC internals, she won the leadership with 20,328 votes and in the 2015 elections she secured 17,502.
In the 2017 election race, she was challenged by Bharath, who dropped out, ex-MP Christine Newallo-Hosein and Chanda Baggan. She was challenged by UNC frontliner Roodal Moonilal in 2015.
Yesterday, Khan said, “(Last Sunday’s) results show that 644 people believe in change and an innovative approach to general election system change, which is in keeping with the population’s curve bell of intelligence. Generally, 95 per cent of people are followers, five per cent are usually early adopters of change and those who think. But the idea will be accepted in the future—it’s like new things and ideas introduced.”
“All go through that curve. They’re accustomed to keeping that status quo until it keeps failing. Winning was an impossibility. But a fair election wasn’t done—that’s the main issue and there was no need for unfairness as they could have won anyway,” Khan claimed, maintaining 12,000 votes were not cast and “4,000 votes came from the sky.”