If Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hopes to unite her par­ty ahead of the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, it will re­quire more con­sis­ten­cy in the mes­sages she is send­ing to those who have fall­en out of favour with her.

At a time when the par­ty is bad­ly in need of heal­ing and uni­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar has widened the gap be­tween her and the 'dis­si­dents' who came up against her slate in the June 2024 in­ter­nal par­ty elec­tions, rel­e­gat­ing them to seats fur­ther away from her in Par­lia­ment.

There could hard­ly be any clear­er mes­sage about how she now views them as Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment.

While some have al­ready sig­nalled they are no longer in­ter­est­ed in con­tin­u­ing as UNC MPs, those who might have felt they still stood a chance of an­oth­er term, are most cer­tain­ly be­ing told their days are num­bered.

In­ter­est­ing­ly, just hours af­ter the Par­lia­ment shifts had tak­en place, Per­sad-Bisses­sar was ad­dress­ing a UNC au­di­ence in Ch­agua­nas, pro­nounc­ing how fair the par­ty's in­ter­nal elec­tions had been.

To present the June in­ter­nal elec­tions as de­mo­c­ra­t­ic, while at the same time ap­pear­ing to fur­ther side­line those who had the courage to op­pose her, is a con­tra­dic­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar can­not af­ford at this time.

Not on­ly does it tell the UNC mem­bers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the process that the par­ty's democ­ra­cy isn't as sol­id as they thought, but it puts the par­ty at risk of be­ing seen by the na­tion­al vot­ing pop­u­la­tion as a par­ty where dis­sent­ing voic­es are not al­lowed. 

Per­sad-Bisses­sar must recog­nise that the UNC's dirty linen is dry­ing out­side while the par­ty cham­pi­ons it­self as the best al­ter­na­tive to gov­ern the coun­try.

As par­ty leader, thou­sands of peo­ple are look­ing to her to cre­ate mea­sures that would end the in­ter­nal con­flicts the par­ty has been through. 

Yet, Per­sad-Bisses­sar on­ly seems to be fur­ther per­pet­u­at­ing a mes­sage of "do as I say and not as I do," es­pe­cial­ly when one con­sid­ers that her own po­lit­i­cal el­e­va­tion was on the ba­sis of chal­leng­ing for­mer UNC leader Bas­deo Pan­day, who is now de­ceased, for the lead­er­ship of the par­ty dur­ing de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly-held in­ter­nal elec­tions in 2010.

The ques­tion aris­es, there­fore, why was it good for her back then, and not good to­day?

There is no doubt that Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the UNC still have the sup­port of thou­sands of cit­i­zens and are po­si­tioned to win sev­er­al seats in Par­lia­ment when the elec­tion is held.

But the dif­fer­ence be­tween win­ning enough to gov­ern the coun­try and at­tain­ing the num­ber of seats that puts the UNC back in­to Op­po­si­tion, will be based on how much the par­ty can con­vince the pop­u­la­tion that the con­flicts as­so­ci­at­ed with its in­ter­nal gov­er­nance will have no bear­ing on the lead­er­ship of the coun­try.

To do so, the par­ty must find ways to present it­self as a unit­ed con­gress and not as a di­vid­ed house.

Push­ing away those who de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly chal­lenged the par­ty lead­er­ship on­ly does more harm than good to the UNC.

Time will tell whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar has what it takes to turn the par­ty around. 

That time, how­ev­er, is run­ning out fast.