Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call for po­lit­i­cal sides op­posed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) to join with her par­ty is a con­cept of “uni­ty” has come too late to be trust­ed as sin­cere, af­ter the UNC lead­er­ship re­ject­ed that call from its MPs in 2019.

“... Com­ing on the eve of Nom­i­na­tion Day, it is like the sto­ry of the spi­der say­ing to the fly, ‘Come in­to my par­lour’,” added out­go­ing UNC MP Gan­ga Singh, who’d pro­posed that UNC have uni­ty talks with oth­er forces in 2019. He was un­suc­cess­ful.

Oth­er UNC front­lin­ers who’d called for uni­ty of par­ties in 2018 and 2019 al­so dissed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s uni­ty call. She made the call at Thurs­day’s vir­tu­al UNC meet­ing.

Out­go­ing UNC MPs Singh, Fuad Khan and oth­ers, in­clud­ing Vas­ant Bharath, De­vant Ma­haraj, Jack Warn­er and UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day, had called for uni­ty at a func­tion Singh had in De­cem­ber 2018.

It was sig­nalled by the lead­er­ship the UNC was open but on­ly to those who shared the par­ty’s phi­los­o­phy. Singh and Khan at­tempt­ed to get par­ty dis­cus­sion on the is­sue via a res­o­lu­tion at a UNC Con­gress in 2019. But the res­o­lu­tion wasn’t al­lowed on the agen­da, Singh re­called. The par­ty sub­se­quent­ly de­cid­ed to “go it alone.” There was al­so no move­ment for Bharath to be re­turned to the fold.

Singh de­cid­ed not to con­test be­cause of the uni­ty call fail­ure. Khan al­so stepped down.

Fuad Khan

Marvin Smith

Yes­ter­day, Singh said of Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call, “I’m hap­py the Op­po­si­tion leader has come around to the point of view which was ex­pressed in our res­o­lu­tion. That res­o­lu­tion was for the Con­gress to ap­prove our call for UNC to en­gage in talks with a broad spec­trum - from civic and re­li­gious groups to busi­ness and po­lit­i­cal fig­ures and par­ties - to build a firm plat­form to fight 2020 elec­tions.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, it was dis­missed out­right. No dis­cus­sion. The leader said we’d ‘go it alone’. But now, at the 11th hour be­fore Nom­i­na­tion Day, she makes this call for uni­ty, dis­mount­ing one horse and jump­ing on the uni­ty horse.”

Singh added “It rings very hol­low to me and rais­es ques­tions on in­tegri­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty. You can’t call for uni­ty be­fore Nom­i­na­tion Day when par­ties al­ready planned their busi­ness and have can­di­dates. In the ab­sence of firm­ly built and known arrange­ments, her con­cept of uni­ty is like the spi­der say­ing to the fly - come in­to my par­lour.”

Singh said T&T is in very se­ri­ous straits, re­quir­ing thought-cen­tric peo­ple and deep ex­per­tise all round.

“UNC’s leader has now recog­nised her choice of can­di­dates lack at­trac­tive qual­i­ties and she now seeks to pull in oth­ers. But there can be no ‘shot­gun mar­riage’ with vot­ers again af­ter the ex­pe­ri­ences of the NAR and PP group­ings,” Singh said.

“I don’t see peo­ple buy­ing this. There can be no re­al trust for that kind of uni­ty in an elec­tion at­mos­phere af­ter say­ing be­fore that the UNC was go­ing it alone.’’

Khan mean­while said, “Gan­ga and I paid the ul­ti­mate price. I hung up my guns. The leader seems to have seen the light. But just be­fore an elec­tion, that call is late. It will come across as to­tal­ly op­por­tunis­tic. It would have been bet­ter to have dis­cussed it and let peo­ple de­cide when we brought the 2018 res­o­lu­tion.

“The small­er par­ties have noth­ing. If they want to en­ter gov­ern­ment they might have to ac­cept the call or maybe they may not trust the process at this late stage.’’

Devant Maharaj

Ma­haraj said, “The Op­po­si­tion leader’s call for a uni­ty ac­cord is as in­ter­est­ing as it is con­fus­ing, since when a sim­i­lar call for uni­ty talks was made be­fore, in­clud­ing at a na­tion­al con­gress - that call was dis­missed.

“On the eve of Nom­i­na­tion Day such a call may be viewed as in­sin­cere with on­ly the pur­pose of de­feat­ing the PNM as the uni­fy­ing fac­tor. The uni­ty call shows that dis­missal of the pre­vi­ous call was a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty for de­vel­op­ing re­al uni­ty foun­da­tion to re­move the PNM.

“With on­ly weeks be­fore elec­tions, it will be in­struc­tive to see which third par­ties, if any, choose to ac­cept UNC’s call. The un­qual­i­fied and re­li­able in­com­pe­tence of the Row­ley Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, may serve to push all par­ties to unite in or­der to avoid an­oth­er year term of eco­nom­ic tur­moil.”

Bharath said, “This uni­ty call has been made be­fore by var­i­ous peo­ple as his­to­ry has shown that the PNM can be and has been beat­en when op­po­si­tion forces unite. But the uni­ty was clear­ly and pub­licly re­ject­ed by the UNC’s leader on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions, even re­buk­ing those in the par­ty who called for it.

“Whether the pub­lic and par­ties will see this lat­est call as too lit­tle too late and an­oth­er mar­riage of con­ve­nience is left to be seen.”

At­tempts to con­tact Pan­day were un­suc­cess­ful as he didn’t an­swer ei­ther his cell­phone or land­line.

—Gail Alexan­der