SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Min­is­ter, Vas­ant Bharath is once again call­ing on the par­ty’s in­cum­bent leader to en­sure that the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tions are con­duct­ed fair­ly.

Dur­ing a news con­fer­ence at his San Juan of­fice yes­ter­day, Bharath, who is chal­leng­ing in­cum­bent Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the lead­er­ship role in the De­cem­ber 6 elec­tion, said the voice of the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship is be­ing sup­pressed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“Un­fair elec­tions serve no one ex­cept dic­ta­tors, and those who are ad­dict­ed to a po­si­tion de­spite not achiev­ing any tan­gi­ble re­sults while hold­ing that po­si­tion,” Bharath said.

He said there seemed to be a mis­con­cep­tion by Per­sad-Bisses­sar as he said the in­ter­nal elec­tion is not about the lead­er­ship but about the par­ty’s or­di­nary mem­bers.

He said as a con­tender in this elec­tion, he felt it was his du­ty to pre­serve a fair process.

Bharath said his re­cent re­quests to Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a meet­ing to de­cide on the mem­bers of an elec­tion com­mit­tee were ig­nored.

“The cur­rent UNC lead­er­ship, in re­sponse to what all right-think­ing mem­bers would agree is a rea­son­able re­quest, in­stead of hav­ing those con­sul­ta­tions with us, has hur­ried­ly and with­out no­tice ap­point­ed an elec­tion com­mit­tee on its own and then has told me to take my con­cerns to that com­mit­tee. In oth­er words, they have done is to ap­point a judge in their own cause. That vi­o­lates all prin­ci­ples of fair­ness and I say re­spect­ful­ly that a Se­nior Coun­sel should know bet­ter,” Bharath said.

He said this move was an in­sult to the par­ty and its mem­bers and slammed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for ques­tion­ing the coun­try’s na­tion­al elec­tion process.

“They use ar­gu­ments of elec­tion un­fair­ness when it suits them to fool sup­port­ers in­to think­ing that they were cheat­ed but the re­al­i­ty is that they have no in­ter­est in fos­ter­ing a cul­ture of elec­toral in­tegri­ty.”

Bharath said he has been told by mem­bers that al­though they will vote for him, they do not be­lieve he will win. He said those mem­bers were con­cerned be­cause Per­sad-Bisses­sar has ‘con­trol’ of the par­ty’s list of mem­bers.

“Those state­ments rep­re­sent fear and anx­i­ety among our mem­ber­ship that things can­not change be­cause those who are in pow­er may have abused their po­si­tions. As a mem­ber­ship, we in the UNC must re­ject that and be brave and coura­geous de­spite the odds. I wish to tell those mem­bers who have sim­i­lar con­cerns: do not be afraid, come out and vote, vote to ex­press your dis­con­tent with the par­ty,” he said.

He urged his sup­port­ers with­in the par­ty not to feel pow­er­less or weak as he ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of try­ing to sup­press change with­in the UNC.

“Their on­ly tac­tic is to sup­press dis­cus­sion. Their on­ly tac­tic is to sup­press dis­sent. For in­stance, there is a wide­spread call for a lead­er­ship de­bate in our par­ty. The UNC has the chance to demon­strate ma­ture democ­ra­cy through the hold­ing of a lead­er­ship de­bate, but the cur­rent lead­er­ship has said noth­ing and will prob­a­bly not say any­thing about a de­bate.”

Bharath said in ad­di­tion to his oth­er con­cerns, he now does not know who is the par­ty’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary as Dave Tan­coo has in­di­cat­ed he no longer holds that po­si­tion since he was ap­point­ed as a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment.

But Bharath said the func­tions of the Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary were still be­ing car­ried out.

“In­for­ma­tion has come to us that hun­dreds of ap­pli­ca­tions for mem­ber­ship have been ap­proved re­cent­ly. So, the ques­tion is, who is ap­prov­ing these ap­pli­ca­tions? Who is ap­prov­ing these new mem­bers? There seems to be in­sti­tu­tion­al chaos in the UNC. I call on the UNC to state pub­licly who is the cur­rent Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the par­ty?”