RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) pre­pares for its spe­cial as­sem­bly on March 15 to dis­cuss the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s lead­er­ship, found­ing mem­ber Wen­dell Ever­s­ley is call­ing on in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har to clar­i­fy whether he has been hav­ing se­cret meet­ings with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Ever­s­ley, who served a let­ter to the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive threat­en­ing “swift le­gal ac­tion” if the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion was not up­held, told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that he had rea­son to be­lieve Ra­mad­har was en­gaged in talks with Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the eve of a gen­er­al elec­tion, de­spite know­ing that the COP had an MOU with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and HOPE led by Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith.

“Prakash Ra­mad­har must tell T&T if he is hav­ing any talks with Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­cause he told us he wasn’t talk­ing to [her]. Kam­la said on record that she has been talk­ing to Prakash, and he was in­ter­im leader, so who ly­ing?” Ever­s­ley ques­tioned.

He al­so con­demned Ra­mad­har for not fol­low­ing the COP con­sti­tu­tion when he was se­lect­ed as in­ter­im leader.

“Prakash has gone on record to say he did not fol­low the con­sti­tu­tion, so if peo­ple don’t fol­low their own con­sti­tu­tion, you think when they get in­to gov­ern­ment they will fol­low the Con­sti­tu­tion?” Ever­s­ley asked.

He added, “We have signed an MOU with HOPE and NTA, led by Gary Grif­fith. I ask Ra­mad­har whether he [will] ho­n­our the MOU that Kirt Sin­nette, the for­mer in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader, signed, where he called for a grand al­liance—not a Kam­la al­liance, but a grand al­liance.”

Ever­s­ley not­ed: “What I am see­ing tak­ing place in the COP, I am putting it clear that I am go­ing ac­cord­ing to the con­sti­tu­tion, and I will not sup­port any­body who [is] mak­ing back­door deals.

“We see what we went through in the pe­ri­od 2010 to 2015 and then from 2015 to 2020. I have seen the same Prakash Ra­mad­har, who was the po­lit­i­cal leader and was the on­ly MP from the COP, [but he] nev­er at­tend­ed any na­tion­al coun­cil meet­ing, any ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing, or par­lia­men­tary meet­ing. So how come all of a sud­den, on the eve of an elec­tion, he be­comes the leader?”

Al­so con­tact­ed on Ever­s­ley’s claims yes­ter­day, COP in­ter­im chair­man Lons­dale Williams con­firmed a le­gal let­ter had been served to the par­ty but not­ed, “We are com­plet­ing the sec­ond step of a two-step process. There is noth­ing more to re­port.”

On Jan­u­ary 25, in a signed no­tice sent to me­dia hous­es, Williams said, “In ac­cor­dance with ar­ti­cle 17 (1), no­tice is here­by giv­en of the spe­cial as­sem­bly meet­ing sched­uled to be held on March 15, at 4 pm at a venue to be de­ter­mined. The is­sue of the of­fice of po­lit­i­cal leader is ex­pect­ed to be dis­cussed.”

Ra­mad­har suc­ceed­ed COP’s first po­lit­i­cal leader Win­ston Dook­er­an in 2011 and ob­tained a sec­ond term in 2014, af­ter a bat­tle with for­mer chair­man Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who was sup­port­ed by Dook­er­an. Ra­mad­har re­signed as leader in 2016 amid con­tin­u­ing crit­i­cism that dogged his tenure with the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, where he served as Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day for com­ment, Ra­mad­har said he was at­tend­ing a func­tion and would get back to us soon. Up to press time, how­ev­er, he had not re­spond­ed to the queries.