It’s Nomination Day In Trinidad
Pandays Booted Out Of General Election

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — During her campaign for leadership of the party he formed 20 years ago, Kamla Persad- Bissessar publicly spoke highly of her mentor, Basdeo Panday, whom she said had guided her through the rough and tumble waters of politics in Trinidad and Tobago.

But in one fell swoop, she has got rid of not only him, but his brother Subhas, and his daughter Mickela, the latter, many political observers here had said, was being groomed to take over the United National Congress (UNC) that Basdeo Panday formed in 1988.

PERSAD-BISSESSAR... I was not of the view that there was any indication that we were on a mass wipe-out 1/2 Now, as the UNC prepares to battle the ruling People's National Movement (PNM) in the May 24 snap general election that Prime Minister Patrick Manning called twoand- a-half years ahead of the constitutional deadline, Persad-Bissessar has not only sidelined 40 years of politics involving the Pandays, but she has also wiped the slate of any of his influential loyalists.

Among those she has brushed aside include former Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, and outgoing legislators Dr Hamza Rafeez, the former health minister who served as Opposition party whip when Panday was Opposition leader, Kevin Ramnath and Vasanth Bharath, whose safe St Augustine seat along the east-west corridor was handed over to the Congress of the People (COP) deputy leader Prakash Ramadhar to contest.

Former UNC senator Wade Mark, another Panday loyalist, who unsuccessfully contested the Pointe-a-Pierre seat in the 2007 general election, was bypassed in favour of the former head of the Oil Field Workers Trade Union (OWTU) Errol McLeod.

Maharaj has warned the party that it cannot continue to continue along that path. "We cannot in one hand say we going to run this country in a democratic way but at the same time be undemocratic to your party members," said Maharaj. "It is not everybody who joined the UNC for an election would come and fight for your problem and fight for justice for you.

"But if the party doesn't make the right decisions and doesn't have the right kind of content on the platform we are going to lose these elections and lose it worse than we can think of," he added.

Persad-Bissessar, who is leading a coalition of five opposition parties and trade unions into the elections, including the COP, insists that she is not part of a plan to wipe out anyone, including those perceived to be her opponents in the UNC.

"I was not of the view that there was any indication that we were on a mass wipe-out. The only mass wipe-out that we have is against Manning and his regime," she told reporters, adding that she is also prepared to face the backlash over her decision to omit the Pandays.

"The people will judge that on the 24th of May, when you make decisions politically you face the political consequences, and on the 24th of May the people will judge us for our actions and our decisions," she said. "I've gone forward after long deliberations by the screening committee and thereafter with the executive.

These decisions were not taken lightly, they were not taken overnight and they were taken in the fullness of all of the circumstances and knowing that when we get into government, that we must be able to hold a government together and that was the team that was chosen, as you see them here, to hold that government together," said Persad- Bissessar.

The 58-year-old attorney, who stands on the verge of creating history by becoming the oil-rich twin-island republic's first woman prime minister if the coalition wins the polls, said in time, the hurt created by her party's decision to field certain candidates would disappear.

"I believe at the end of the day, while there may be persons hurt, that personal hurt will pass and will heal to the greater good, which is for us to work together to improve the quality of life of all the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. So we have a team that reflects, in my respectful view, the rainbow that is Trinidad and Tobago," she said. "I don't think there will be a backlash. I think there will be some personal hurt, which is normal, it's a human condition that sometimes we will be a little disappointed, but I feel the personal hurt will heal and give way to the greater good," she said, adding "we need to reflect the balance of the rainbow in Trinidad and Tobago."

Ironically, the decision to leave out the Pandays came on the 21st anniversary of the formation of the UNC and for which party chairman, Austin Jack Warner, the influential vice president of the International Football Federation (FIFA) said had showed a high level of democracy in choosing candidates.

"In this party's 21-year history, never has this party undergone the level of democracy in terms of screening candidates. I tell you that is unprecedented, unparalleled and unheard of in the history of the party," said Warner, whose public squabble with Panday has reached the courts here amid allegations regarding financial donations made to the party in 2007.

But Panday, the veteran trade unionist who was first elected to Parliament in 1976, has rubbished such remarks, saying the action was one of "vindictiveness of the highest order".

Panday, who headed the Government from 1995 to 2001, had refused to go before the screening committee and had been hinting at contesting the election as an independent candidate.

The second longest serving parliamentarian in the history of Trinidad and Tobago told reporters the decision to leave out his daughter and brother, two parliamentarians in the last Parliament, left him "no other option but to take my politics outside of Parliament".

"I shall continue to fight for my people relentlessly," he said, adding that he had never been informed that his relatives would have been axed from representing the party he formed after the internal wrangling within the then ruling National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) Government that inflicted the first defeat on the PNM in 1986.

The Silver Fox, as he has long been dubbed in Trinidad and Tobago politics, said that the new executive that was elected following the January 24 internal UNC elections "don't speak to me".

His daughter, who first became a legislator following the 2007 general election, said that "the country would have to judge" whether she had fallen victim to the name "Panday".

"To be completely honest, I am a sitting MP and I worked really hard so I thought that I was going to retain my position," she said, while her uncle, Subhas said "if I have to be sacrificed for the greater good for the removal of the PNM I am willing to bear that sacrifice". "I will hold my head up high," he added.

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