Panday faces toughest political battle

Jan 13, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The Opposition Leader of our CARICOM sister nation Trinidad & Tobago, Basdeo Panday, faces a tough challenge to his leadership hold on the UNC party he founded 20 years ago. The party’s membership will choose a new leader on January 24.
There are about 34,000 members. Polls show challenger Kamla Persad Bissessar, a protégé and one of three deputy leaders of the party, is the heavy favourite to wrest the leadership from Panday. The other challenger is former deputy leader and one time de facto successor Ramesh Maharaj, the former Attorney General who was dismissed from Panday’s Cabinet over his opposition to corruption.
Maharaj’s firing led to the collapse of the UNC government and new elections which Panday lost in December 2001. Panday’s continued hold to power cannot be dismissed completely for he is known to make several comebacks after being labeled politically dead.
Supporters of Bissessar say a poll they commissioned showed her with 73% support in mid December and 94% end of December. An independent NACTA poll gave Bissessar 27% but the poll also showed she has wide appeal among non UNC voters in Trinidad although she trails Panday within the UNC membership with Maharaj a close third. A quarter of the voters were still undecided at the end of December. Panday launches his campaign on January 8.
The NACTA poll found that members of another party, COP, a break away faction of the UNC, have infiltrated the UNC obtaining membership with the goal of replacing Panday with Bissessar as leader. There were also complaints of a plot to dissolve the UNC and or merge it with COP without Panday and Maharaj, two of the strongest leaders in the opposition.
The plot has been dominating the media news over the last week with COP leader, Winston Dookeran, a former leader of UNC, admitting that many COP members are also UNC members. When asked by the media, he said it is up to the UNC to decide if it will allow COP members to vote in their elections.
The UNC members are now up in arms over the COP infiltration causing the UNC Elections Commission to consider carrying out an exercise to purge the voters list of COP members.
The UNC Election Commission will decide this week what to do about COP members who are on the UNC voters list.
Regardless of who win, the party is expected to suffer convulsions that will hurt its chances at the next general elections due in 2012.
Vishnu Bisram

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