Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

Jack Warn­er is open to con­test­ing a seat in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion for the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), but on­ly if po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is open to the idea.

In an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Warn­er ex­pressed his will­ing­ness to re­turn to the po­lit­i­cal bat­tle­ground, say­ing, “I don’t think I should shy away if we are to get po­lit­i­cal change. If Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar feels that I can func­tion best in place A, B or C I will do that. My ob­jec­tive is to make this coun­try a bet­ter place.”

Asked if he is eye­ing the Ch­agua­nas West con­stituen­cy, now rep­re­sent­ed by the UNC’s Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, he said, “If I am of­fered Ch­agua­nas West I will not have any work to do be­cause I left that con­stituen­cy with every­body hap­py as ever, con­tent­ed and pleased with my work and per­for­mance. I am sure af­ter 10 years they have not for­got­ten.”

Warn­er served as Ch­agua­nas West MP be­tween 2007 and 2013 un­der the UNC and won the seat again in 2013 un­der his In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP). In 2020, he con­test­ed the Lopinot/Bon Air West seat un­der the ILP and lost to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Mar­vin Gon­za­les.

Af­ter eight years away from the UNC, he re­turned to sup­port the par­ty for the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions. The par­ty re­ceived 173,961 votes in that elec­tion while the PNM got 130,868.

Ques­tions over Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s suit­abil­i­ty to lead the par­ty in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion were raised ahead of the par­ty’s in­ter­nal elec­tion in June, caus­ing fall­out with the UNC and a dis­si­dent fac­tion who had chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s slate dur­ing the in­ter­nals.

But Warn­er in­sist­ed yes­ter­day that she’s the on­ly one to lead the par­ty to vic­to­ry at the polls.

“If you put her out, then who do you put in?” he asked.

“There’s no­body in the UNC right now who has the kind of cur­ren­cy that she has.”

But ad­mit­ting that the in­ter­nal wran­glings hurt him, Warn­er said he be­lieves some of the dis­si­dents hold tremen­dous po­ten­tial for the par­ty’s suc­cess.

“At least four of them, I think, have some po­lit­i­cal sub­stance to of­fer. You must ad­mit that Ani­ta Haynes, Rush­ton Paray, Rod­ney Charles, though he de­cid­ed to re­tire on his own, and Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, these guys have some­thing to of­fer the coun­try. I don’t think Rai Rag­bir has, and I say that with a heavy heart be­cause he is my friend,” Warn­er stat­ed.

From what he has seen, how­ev­er, the for­mer UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader said the dif­fer­ences be­tween the dis­si­dents and the par­ty’s lead­er­ship are not rec­on­cil­able.

Still, he charged that the re­al en­e­my is “the PNM” and hopes that oth­er po­lit­i­cal forces, even the Gary Grif­fith-led Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, will join the UNC in un­seat­ing the rul­ing par­ty.

Up to press time, Per­sad Bisses­sar had not re­spond­ed to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions re­gard­ing Warn­er’s will­ing­ness to con­test a seat.

How­ev­er, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James be­lieves that it would be a bad idea.

“The ques­tion is whether he has the strength and rel­e­vance. I think those things are wan­ing and peo­ple are go­ing to ask for him to do work in the back­ground but not be up front be­cause of his age and the need for vi­bran­cy in the par­ty,” Dr James told Guardian Me­dia.

He added, “I know Jack Warn­er is charis­mat­ic; one can’t doubt that and he still holds it. But it has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly wan­ing over time and so I think it will be a bad idea for the UNC to put him in any seat, even where he lives in Lopinot/Bon Air West.”

The Unit­ed States is still seek­ing to ex­tra­dite Warn­er, a for­mer FI­FA ex­ec­u­tive, who faces 29 charges re­lat­ed to fraud, rack­e­teer­ing and il­le­gal wire trans­fers laid in 2015 in re­la­tion to his ac­tiv­i­ty in FI­FA. Warn­er, though, is con­fi­dent that he will be vin­di­cat­ed and un­til then, he is com­mit­ting his time to his lo­cal busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ties.