Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the par­ty will not be desta­bilised by peo­ple who have since turned their backs on it in “or­ches­trat­ed res­ig­na­tions.”

Her com­ment come in the wake of the res­ig­na­tion on Wednes­day of for­mer Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jow­elle De Souza, who point­ed to lead­er­ship is­sues and the par­ty’s tra­jec­to­ry among the rea­sons be­hind her res­ig­na­tion.

Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP Dr Rai Rag­bir al­so with­drew his nom­i­na­tion for can­di­da­cy last month, while at­tor­ney and mem­ber Lar­ry Lal­la, SC, re­signed af­ter what he said were un­suc­cess­ful at­tempts over the years to ad­vo­cate for change in the UNC.

La Brea al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts al­so re­signed from par­ty posts and Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly with­drew his nom­i­na­tion from the screen­ing process.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained that the de­par­tures did not pose a threat to the par­ty’s chances at the polls.

“All polling shows the UNC will win the ma­jor­i­ty of seats in the gen­er­al elec­tion. The or­ches­trat­ed res­ig­na­tions will have no ef­fect on the par­ty or the out­come of the gen­er­al elec­tion,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“The pub­lic un­der­stands what’s hap­pen­ing and it’s the same small group of per­sons who were un­suc­cess­ful in the in­ter­nal elec­tions or pop-up par­ties who are in­volved in these at­tempts to desta­bilise the par­ty. The UNC con­tin­ues to move for­ward and we have reg­is­tered thou­sands of new mem­bers in the last eigh­teen months,” she said.

While Per­sad-Bisses­sar wished those who re­signed well in their fu­ture en­deav­ours, she said she was vig­i­lant when it came to cer­tain be­hav­iours.

“There is place for every­one when the UNC wins. I have ex­plained this to every­one many times but some per­sons be­lieve that if they don’t get a safe UNC seat they must do their ut­most to dam­age the par­ty. The UNC mem­ber­ship and gen­er­al pub­lic are ac­cus­tomed to see­ing this child­ish be­hav­iour every elec­tion and have al­ways re­ject­ed it,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

Mixed views on ex­its

How­ev­er, UNC stal­warts have dif­fer­ing views on the im­pact of the res­ig­na­tions.

For­mer deputy leader Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan said the de­vel­op­ments will not de­ter the par­ty from be­ing suc­cess­ful in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

“I am con­cerned about one or two res­ig­na­tions but I be­lieve that, on the whole, these res­ig­na­tions are not go­ing to have the kind of dra­mat­ic po­lit­i­cal ef­fect that I think some peo­ple think it will have,” Ram­bachan said.

But for­mer Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan said the res­ig­na­tion of mem­bers in quick suc­ces­sion was a cause for con­cern.

“I think ba­si­cal­ly that what­ev­er hap­pens to the UNC right now is just a symp­tom of a big­ger dis­ease.”

A for­mer MP and cur­rent tem­po­rary Sen­a­tor Dr Tim Gopeesingh said the res­ig­na­tion of par­ty mem­bers was not un­com­mon through­out the par­ty’s his­to­ry.

“Giv­en my longevi­ty in the par­ty, I have wit­nessed quite a few in­stances like these, with sim­i­lar ac­tions by a few mem­bers. The his­to­ry and track record show that these mat­ters have nev­er and will nev­er desta­bilise our great par­ty,” he said.

How­ev­er, for­mer UNC MP Vas­ant Bharath flagged par­ty leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s han­dling of the res­ig­na­tions as con­cern­ing.

“I think the re­sponse from the lead­er­ship in my mind does not help the sit­u­a­tion, to me pol­i­tics is about ad­di­tion and not sub­trac­tion. You must ex­pect there will be di­verse views and those views must be em­braced.” Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James was mea­sured in his as­sess­ment of the de­vel­op­ment in the UNC.

“Can the res­ig­na­tions hurt the par­ty, I sup­pose in an aca­d­e­m­ic sense you can say yes, but we don’t know these peo­ple have the po­lit­i­cal clout to af­fect the UNC’s chances. I’m not say­ing they can’t but it is not known that they can,” James said.