GEISHA KOW­LESSAR

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

Found­ing mem­ber of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) Wen­dell Ever­s­ley has served a let­ter to the par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive threat­en­ing “swift le­gal ac­tion” should the par­ty fail to be guid­ed by its con­sti­tu­tion in the se­lec­tion of an in­ter­im po­lit­i­cal leader or po­lit­i­cal leader. 

The let­ter al­so calls up­on the par­ty’s na­tion­al coun­cil to sum­mon the spe­cial con­fer­ence of the na­tion­al as­sem­bly for the elec­tion of a po­lit­i­cal leader or to ap­point one of the deputy lead­ers to act as po­lit­i­cal leader in the in­ter­im.

COP in­ter­im chair­man Lons­dale Williams had an­nounced that Prakash Ra­mad­har, its for­mer head, had been re­turned to the helm. Ra­mad­har was said to have re­placed Kirt Sin­nette, who stepped down as po­lit­i­cal leader.

Sin­nette had ini­tial­ly named Ra­mad­har a deputy leader be­fore mak­ing him the new in­ter­im leader.

Since then there has been a heat­ed dis­pute among COP of­fi­cials over how the mat­ter was han­dled. Yes­ter­day Guardian Me­dia reached out to Ever­s­ley, who said, “I was one of the first ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers at an elec­tion, elect­ing of­fi­cers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, and I re­main an ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer up to now, up to to­day. And I want to make sure that our par­ty do things the right way, where in­tegri­ty, hon­esty, and the new pol­i­tics is con­cerned.

“We can­not have a po­lit­i­cal leader re­sign as po­lit­i­cal leader and then ap­point some­one to be the po­lit­i­cal leader. And then af­ter, back­track and send a se­ries of let­ters. The facts are there, and the court is there.”

In the let­ter, Ever­s­ley said “the Con­gress of the Peo­ple should re­main stead­fast in its vi­sion and prin­ci­ples and must lead by ex­am­ple in en­gi­neer­ing change.” 

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.

Asked to com­ment on Ever­s­ley’s state­ments, Ra­mad­har said, “Let him swim in his own lit­tle pond. The COP has work to do.” —Geisha Kow­lessar