RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has de­scribed the res­ig­na­tion of four more mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) La Brea con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive as child­ish and ir­rel­e­vant to the par­ty’s gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

In a let­ter is­sued on Sun­day to UNC chair­man Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Pe­ter Kan­hai, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the La Brea con­stituen­cy’s wel­fare of­fi­cer Jes­si­ca Wat­son-Girod, par­ty or­gan­is­er Chinelle Roberts, elec­tions of­fi­cer Nico­la Sylvester and sec­re­tary Leemoy Lee an­nounced their res­ig­na­tions with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.

Re­spond­ing to the res­ig­na­tions via What­sapp, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “This is a non-is­sue and ir­rel­e­vant to the UNC gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. It’s the same re­cur­ring child­ish char­ac­ters that were dec­i­mat­ed in the in­ter­nal elec­tions and dis­grun­tled per­sons. They’re just em­bar­rass­ing them­selves with this tired act.”

She added, “Every­one un­der­stands their gim­mick­ry. The pueril­i­ty is com­i­cal. We are polling very well, and more can­di­dates will be an­nounced in the com­ing days. We are very, very con­fi­dent that the UNC will win the GE.”

In the let­ter is­sued to the UNC ex­ec­u­tive, the four mem­bers said they were dis­pleased over the way al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts was be­ing treat­ed by the par­ty ex­ec­u­tive.

“Our de­ci­sion is not tak­en light­ly. How­ev­er, the bla­tant dis­re­spect shown to al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts af­ter he raised crit­i­cal is­sues in the in­ter­est of the par­ty has made it abun­dant­ly clear that UNC no longer val­ues those who gen­uine­ly want the par­ty to suc­ceed. In­stead, the on­ly re­quire­ment for sur­vival with­in the par­ty is blind loy­al­ty to you, the po­lit­i­cal leader,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The four mem­bers said that when they joined the UNC, it was a par­ty “built on prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy, in­ter­nal de­bate, and a col­lec­tive vi­sion for na­tion­al progress.”

“What ex­ists to­day is an in­su­lar cult of per­son­al­i­ty where in­de­pen­dent thought is si­lenced and those who dare to chal­lenge fail­ures are cast aside,” the let­ter stat­ed.

The four mem­bers said they could not, in good con­science, con­tin­ue to be part of an or­gan­i­sa­tion “that pun­ish­es in­tegri­ty and re­wards syco­phancy.”

Last week, al­der­man Roberts, who al­so re­signed from his po­si­tion, called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to pro­vide a full au­dit of the par­ty’s fi­nances over the past decade. Roberts has giv­en the UNC un­til April 30 to dis­close the de­tails.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when asked to com­ment on his call, re­spond­ed via What­sApp, say­ing: “That’s ir­rel­e­vant. Non-is­sue.”

In De­cem­ber, Roberts threat­ened to present ev­i­dence to the An­ti-Cor­rup­tion Bu­reau and the Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tor over al­leged im­pro­pri­ety at the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

Al­so con­tact­ed for com­ment, UNC chair­man Tan­coo said the most re­cent res­ig­na­tions were “the or­ches­trat­ed res­ig­na­tions which the po­lit­i­cal leader spoke about.”

Tan­coo said: “It is an ir­refutable fact that the UNC stands as the sole bas­tion that has bold­ly and un­wa­ver­ing­ly held the PNM ac­count­able over the past nine years.”

He added: “This call­ing is not for the faint of heart. This vo­ca­tion re­quires dis­ci­plined team play­ers who are brave, com­mit­ted and loy­al to the peo­ple of our na­tion and the prin­ci­ples of our par­ty.”

Tan­coo fur­ther said the UNC will re­main stead­fast in de­fence of pub­lic in­ter­est and will main­tain a state of readi­ness for the forth­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. “Noth­ing will dis­tract us from our du­ty,” he added.

Ran­dall Mitchell, the cur­rent Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture, and the Arts, has been named the PNM can­di­date for the La Brea seat, while Clyde El­der, the for­mer sec­re­tary gen­er­al of the Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Work­ers’ Union (CWU), has been an­nounced as the UNC can­di­date. This de­ci­sion is part of a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the UNC and the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), with El­der rep­re­sent­ing the La Brea seat and Ernesto Ke­sar con­test­ing the Point Fortin seat.