What's up Dooks? Griffith challenges COP leader

There is open warfare building in the Congress of the People (COP) with Political Leader Winston Dookeran facing a challenge from one of the party’s frontline members, Gary Griffith.

Dookeran, the unelected leader of the COP, left his post as leader of the United National Congress (which he won unopposed) to form COP, saying he wanted to introduce "new politics" in Trinidad and Tobago.

He refused all attempts to work with the United National Congress Alliance (UNC-A) in the Nov. 5, 2007 General Election, even an eleventh hour plea from UNC-A Leader Basdeo Panday to unite and defeat the governing People’s National Movement (PNM).

The result of the election demonstrated that people were ready to change their government but were torn between which of the two opposition parties to support. In the end the PNM was returned to power with a majority of 26 of the 41 seats in the House of Representatives, with the UNC-A getting the other 15.

A majority of voters had chosen the opposition, but in the first-past-the-post system, it didn’t matter. Dookeran’s gamble didn’t pay off. His party won 148,000 votes but no seats; Dookeran lost his own St Augustine seat, which he won handily in 2002 as the UNC candidate, to political rookie, Vasant Bharath.

Even during the election campaign, there was talk among COP insiders that something was not right. But the powerful Public Relations unit headed by former UNC adviser Roy Boyke glossed over the problems and painted a picture of a confident party heading for victory.

Shortly after the election campaign chairman Gerry Yetming, a former UNC cabinet minister, announced that he was retiring from politics.

And reliable party sources reported that Dookeran himself was considering ending his political career and emigrating. Dookeran has denied that and he insists all is well in the COP family and that the focus now is on winning the upcoming Local Government elections expected in July this year.

Read related story: Dookeran to quit COP

"And we are proceeding very well and there are lots of people who are working and working at all levels, from the bottom level to the top level of the COP all over the country," Dookeran told the Trinidad Express in a weekend interview.

He said the COP is continuing to build on its founding principles of integrity in all our institutions, transcending all divisions in the society and advocating serious social reform. "We are working to keep that alive and I am doing my part to ensure that happens," Dookeran told the paper, while declining specific comments on the challenge to his leadership.

But Griffith isn’t buying that. He insists that things are moving well only in Dookeran’s imagination.

He claims that Dookeran has become "a law unto himself" and has set up several parallel groups that are taking their instructions from him without any input from the executive.

Griffith and other COP executive members, including the Political Leader, were appointed on an interim basis because of the urgency of the general election.

The former army captain has told Dookeran he will no longer chair COP’s national security council until the party holds internal elections.

Griffith says he is angry because of Dookeran’s style of leadership. While he openly expressed concerns about the leader he said the party is not imploding. But he adds that with Dookeran as leader the party would not be able to build on the support it had in the last general election.

Orginally published: January 28, 2008