Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she is not fazed by the res­ig­na­tion of the Diego Mar­tin North-East Con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. She said she ex­pects more af­ter the slate of prospec­tive can­di­dates are an­nounced to­day.

In a two-page let­ter, the sev­en ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers said the al­liance with the Phillip Alexan­der-led Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) prompt­ed them to re­sign.

They said they could not, in good con­science, re­main while be­ing co­erced to aban­don their prin­ci­ples, not­ing that Alexan­der had pub­licly ad­mon­ished the UNC for its sup­posed wrong­do­ing and in­abil­i­ty to lead the coun­try.

“For years, we have worked tire­less­ly to strength­en the UNC’s pres­ence in Diego Mar­tin North-East, build mem­ber­ship, and up­hold the par­ty’s core val­ues in a tra­di­tion­al­ly dif­fi­cult con­stituen­cy.

“We have done so out of gen­uine be­lief in the UNC’s vi­sion for Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, re­cent events have made it clear that in­tegri­ty and prin­ci­ple are no longer val­ued with­in the par­ty’s lead­er­ship,” the ex­ec­u­tive wrote.

The res­ig­na­tions came 24 hours af­ter nine oth­ers left the par­ty.

Asked about the lat­est res­ig­na­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “This is just the pre­dict­ed con­tin­u­a­tion of the or­ches­trat­ed, child­ish res­ig­na­tions that have been on­go­ing over the last month, which will con­tin­ue un­til the gen­er­al elec­tion.

“It takes the to­tal to 30 res­ig­na­tions out of a mem­ber­ship of 125000 plus. It will have no ef­fect on the UNC gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign just as the pre­vi­ous ones didn’t. We have reg­is­tered thou­sands of new mem­bers plus the in­com­ing thou­sands from the Unions, PEP and oth­er groups.

“The UNC will be con­test­ing the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral seat. All of our polling da­ta shows a vic­to­ry at the gen­er­al elec­tion, we are very con­fi­dent.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed said the res­ig­na­tions are a sign of in­dis­ci­pline in the par­ty.

“One has to un­der­stand, this is what dif­fer­en­ti­ates the UNC’s mem­ber­ship from the PNM’s mem­ber­ship,” he said.

“Yes, the PNM’s mem­ber­ship is in dis­cord. They will have dis­agree­ments. They will not al­ways align them­selves with what is hap­pen­ing with­in the par­ty but it does not mean that they will re­sign be­cause the PNM’s mem­ber­ship recog­nis­es the im­por­tance of win­ning as op­posed to los­ing.

“And this is the same be­hav­iour that needs to be adopt­ed by the UNC mem­ber­ship. At the end of the day, what is your long-term goal in an elec­tion? The long-term goal is win­ning the elec­tion.”

On Sat­ur­day Alexan­der an­nounced he will take on Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young for the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West seat. He said he was giv­en the nod to con­test all three Diego Mar­tin seats but on­ly an­nounced two can­di­dates, Jan­ice Lear­mond-Criqui and Bren­don Butts for Diego Mar­tin West and Diego Mar­tin North-East re­spec­tive­ly.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral seat will be con­test­ed by the UNC. She added that the PEP was giv­en two Diego Mar­tin seats based on polling da­ta, sen­ti­ment analy­sis, FOA and oth­er an­a­lyt­ics.

Deputy chair­man of the ex­ec­u­tive Ricky Shanklin said dur­ing a meet­ing on Fri­day the ex­ec­u­tive was in­formed that the PEP was get­ting all three Diego Mar­tin seats. He be­lieves the res­ig­na­tion of the ex­ec­u­tive trig­gered the par­ty’s de­ci­sion to re­tain the Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral seat.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: “Mr Shanklin al­so did screen for the seat (Diego Mar­tin North-East) but was un­suc­cess­ful. I’m sure some oth­er per­sons who screened for seats in oth­er con­stituen­cies may do the same when in­formed that they were not se­lect­ed. That’s just the re­al­i­ty dur­ing elec­tion sea­son.”

Alexan­der urged the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers to think of the big­ger pic­ture, win­ning the elec­tion. He added that the al­liance is at war to “res­cue the coun­try from the PNM” with the Op­po­si­tion Leader as the gen­er­al. He said he will obey her com­mand even if it means not con­test­ing any seat.

“She’s the gen­er­al. This is an army. We’re go­ing to war. I don’t get to ask why. My job is to do, and I will,” he said.