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“[…] Ever since she ran in 2015 on a leader-centric election marketing campaign that sold the virtues of Kamla The Leader rather than UNC The Party, she has tightened her grip on her party.
“[…] The double-edged sword of making the leader rather than the party the focal point is that she is yoked to its electoral failures. It’s hard to find anyone in her own party who thinks that the Opposition Leader, who turns 72 next month, can defeat Dr Keith Rowley in 2025, at the third time of asking…”
The following guest column on the relationship between the governments of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana was submitted to Wired868 by Orin Gordon, a Guyana-born, T&T-based media consultant who publishes at oringordon.com:
Photo: UNC
“I enjoy your columns,” Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar told me, as I introduced myself with a handshake. The occasion was the Christmas Dinner of the Chaguanas Chamber of Industry and Commerce last November.
It was only the second time I met her in person. The first was in the meeting room of the National Council for Indian Culture at Divali Nagar (at which I was a guest of the NCIC) about three years previously—and the first time I actually had a conversation with her.
“But I punch you sometimes, madam,” I said in response.
“That’s okay,” she replied, “you’re fair.”
Photo: UNC
It’d be interesting to see whether the opposition leader still feels that way after reading this. A low-key but clearly visible and simmering civil war within her party has been going for some time. It fully broke out into the open in the past couple of weeks.
The disagreement and punches thrown were over national executive (NATEX) elections by their due date in June—to which Persad-Bissessar and her loyalists within the party are opposed.
The arguments being made for the elections are proceeding on points of democratic principle and calls for the party to respect its own rules; but it’s no secret within the UNC’s ranks that there’s a growing appetite for freshening up the leadership.
(via UNC)
There’s clear dissatisfaction with what some in the party view as Persad-Bisessar’s tired stewardship.
With her as leader, the UNC has lost two straight general elections, in 2015 and 2020. The one-term prime minister (2010 to 2015) looks set to contest her fourth election as leader.
Ever since she ran in 2015 on a leader-centric election marketing campaign that sold the virtues of Kamla The Leader rather than UNC The Party, she has tightened her grip on her party.
(via UNC)
For the 2020 elections, she replaced many of the old guard—the late Fazal Karim and Ramona Ramdial to name a few—with fresh, mainly younger faces. She neutered remaining member of the old guard, Dr Roodal Moonilal, to the point where he is now her enforcer.
It was quite the turnaround for Moonilal, who had no love for uber-loyalists like Barry Padarath when he first arrived on the scene in 2015.
The double-edged sword of making the leader rather than the party the focal point is that she is yoked to its electoral failures.
(Courtesy Baltimore Post)
It’s hard to find anyone in her own party who thinks that the Opposition Leader, who turns 72 next month, can defeat Dr Keith Rowley in 2025, at the third time of asking.
Leadership elections occur on a three-year cycle. The next one is due next year, ahead of the elections. NATEX elections are due in June, in three months’ time.
The party’s leadership proposes to have them both next year. At the same time, the party opened the process of nominations for general elections—due in the second half of 2025—earlier this year, a full year-and-a-half ahead of schedule.
Photo: Udecott
Nomination forms became available at the start of the year, the submission deadline is 11 April and screening is set for May.
The MPs supporting Persad Bissessar’s decision to have nominations now and internal elections later say they have to be prepared for the prime minister calling snap elections this year, and internal elections may be too close to a general election.
However, other UNC members view the moves as the Opposition Leader shoring up her position, to make a leadership challenge less likely before the election.
Photo: Office of the Parliament 2023
Mayaro MP Rushton Paray has stuck his nose above the parapet in calling on his party’s leadership to have the executive elections by the due date. Persad-Bisessar loyalists have attacked him over what they said was his impatience to grab the leadership prize and overweening ambition.
Into this intramural squabble stepped Anita Haynes-Alleyne, the MP for Tabaquite, to offer clear-headed support for NATEX elections in June.
Haynes-Alleyne is the best and most effective Shadow Minister on the Opposition benches (Education) and one of the smartest MPs in the entire house.
Copyright: Office of the Parliament 2024
If she wanted to and could navigate the choppy waters of UNC politics, she’d be a great fit for leading the whole gang.
On CNC3 TV on Monday morning, Haynes-Alleyne said it was possible to support Persad-Bissessar—as she does—and support a call for NATEX elections in June. She referred to the US primary elections process, in which grassroots voters have a say early in the process.
Earlier, Moonilal had chided Paray.
(Copyright Office of the Parliament 2021)
“It is not simply a function of internal elections,” he said. “We have been able to place the Rowley government on the backfoot and we are in a position to return to national office. This is not the time to play the fool.”
Chaguanas East MP Vandana Mohit went in on Paray harder, slamming him for what she described as his invective. Haynes-Alleyne was having none of it.
“Any interpretation of a call for internal elections as an attack is a strange interpretation,” she said, calling out the irony of people elected to the executive attacking others who call for elections.
(Copyright Office of the Parliament 2020)
She noted that in 2010, when a coalition government led by Persad-Bissessar won, UNC internal elections were held a few months before general elections.
Persad-Bisessar should change tack, stop her loyalist caucus attacking MPs who have called for these elections and let her party membership elect a new slate. The UNC can’t win a general election by turning inward.
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