RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Amid re­port­ed dis­con­tent with­in the par­ty over the se­lec­tion of some Gen­er­al Elec­tion can­di­dates, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has as­sured sup­port­ers that she is not wor­ried about any fall­out and says “all is well.”

Speak­ing at the Moru­ga Mul­ti­pur­pose Youth and Sport­ing Com­plex yes­ter­day, where 38 groups gath­ered for wor­ship and cel­e­bra­tion in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Lib­er­a­tion Day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed con­cerns over con­tro­ver­sial Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) can­di­date se­lec­tions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia from her seat dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sured her sup­port­ers they need not wor­ry about the de­vel­op­ments, say­ing, “All is well. All is well. The sun is in the sky. I am not wor­ried. I am not wor­ried. I put my faith in the hands of the Lord.”

Re­gard­ing con­cerns over the se­lec­tion of for­mer po­lice su­per­in­ten­dent Roger Alexan­der for the Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy, she ques­tioned al­le­ga­tions that he was cho­sen with­out screen­ing. (See page 7)

“How do they know that? Ex­act­ly! God is great. We shall sur­vive. We shall suc­ceed,” she said.

On the re­jec­tion of Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, who was screened for the Na­pari­ma seat, and the re­jec­tion of Cou­va South MP Ravi Rati­ram, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “We can­not please every sin­gle per­son in the world. There will al­ways be some who will be con­tent and some dis­con­tent­ed. I can­not al­low dis­con­tent to hold us back.

“We have to grow for­ward. I be­lieve we are on the right track. We can­not please every­one, but we must try to please the ma­jor­i­ty of them, and we move for­ward.”

Asked about long-stand­ing mem­bers in favour of new­com­ers (like Roger Alexan­der and Phillip Watts), she said, “It is the sto­ry of life. That is the sto­ry of life.”

On claims that Cou­va South MP Rudy In­dars­ingh had al­so been re­ject­ed, she re­spond­ed, “And who said In­dars­ingh has been re­moved? That is news to me. Is there an­oth­er leader of the par­ty? Is there an­oth­er screen­ing com­mit­tee?”

Re­gard­ing spec­u­la­tion that re­tired as­sis­tant po­lice com­mis­sion­er De­o­dath Du­lalchan was al­so be­ing con­sid­ered for Ch­agua­nas West, she did not con­firm or de­ny, ex­plain­ing, “We have not made those fi­nal de­ci­sions, and those will be made over the com­ing days.”

She al­so did not ad­dress Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith’s call for dis­si­dents to join him. In­stead, she said, “We are in a blessed time here with the Shouter Bap­tists, and we are in Eid, and we are in Lent. We put our faith in God.”

On Sat­ur­day, re­ports emerged that Rush­ton Paray, Ani­ta Haynes-Al­leyne, and Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al-Ram­di­al had been re­ject­ed by the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive and would not con­test the Ma­yaro, Tabaquite, and Na­pari­ma seats. Nico­las Mor­ris was se­lect­ed for Ma­yaro, while Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine was giv­en the Na­pari­ma seat, ahead of Kami­ni Ram­raj, who had been en­dorsed by for­mer Na­pari­ma MP Nizam Baksh.

Haynes-Al­leyne was un­avail­able for com­ment yes­ter­day, but sources close to her said she had de­cid­ed to de­fer com­ment for now.

An of­fi­cial from the Na­pari­ma con­stituen­cy ex­pressed dis­con­tent in a mes­sage, stat­ing, “The an­nounce­ment of the can­di­date for Na­pari­ma has left us deeply dis­ap­point­ed yet again. At this point, we find our­selves at a loss, un­cer­tain of the next steps to take. Per­haps the best course of ac­tion is to let this elec­tion run its course and ob­serve how events un­fold, as we brace our­selves for an­oth­er term in op­po­si­tion.

“It is clear that we must re­group and de­vise a sol­id plan to re­place the cur­rent lead­er­ship with in­di­vid­u­als who pos­sess a stronger vi­sion for the fu­ture. Kam­la has once again ma­noeu­vred skil­ful­ly to sup­press her own sup­port­ers, per­fect­ing the art of re­main­ing in Op­po­si­tion.”

Guardian Me­dia was re­li­ably in­formed that Vi­jay Go­sein was se­lect­ed for Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la.

Mean­while, for­mer UNC MP Rai Rag­bir called the re­moval of Paray from the UNC’s slate of elec­tion can­di­dates noth­ing short of po­lit­i­cal spite.

“Mr Paray is deeply loved by the peo­ple of Ma­yaro, not be­cause of par­ty af­fil­i­a­tion but be­cause of his proven ded­i­ca­tion, hard work, and un­wa­ver­ing ad­vo­ca­cy for his con­stituents. His re­moval has noth­ing to do with his per­for­mance or abil­i­ty—it is a cal­cu­lat­ed act of vin­dic­tive­ness that pri­ori­tis­es loy­al­ty to one in­di­vid­ual over the in­ter­ests of the peo­ple,” Rag­bir said in a re­lease yes­ter­day.

He added, “The peo­ple of Ma­yaro de­serve bet­ter than to be treat­ed as pawns in an in­ter­nal pow­er game. They de­serve rep­re­sen­ta­tives who are cho­sen based on ser­vice, mer­it, and their abil­i­ty to ef­fect re­al change—not based on their will­ing­ness to bow to a sin­gle in­di­vid­ual’s po­lit­i­cal whims. To­day, Ma­yaro los­es a ded­i­cat­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tive, but the big­ger loss is to the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues we should all be fight­ing to up­hold.”