Jack Warner is sticking to his guns on his call for change within his party and has said he is ready to walk away from the party if it refuses to make changes. The outspoken Chaguanas West MP and UNC Deputy Leader believes that his party is not taking the initiative to change in order to confront the governing PNM.Warner wants the UNC to hold internal elections, stop dealing with politics of the past and move into the 21st century. He also believes opposition unity is a necessity.
But he has made it clear that he has no quarrel with UNC leader Basdeo Panday, who has said the party will hold off on the internal election until after the local government election, which has been postponed twice and is now scheduled to mid-2009.
Warner wants the election sooner rather than later but Panday insists that the party's national executive has taken a decision to defer the vote, which is generally held every two years.
And Panday disagrees with Warner's contention that the party is stuck in the past and not responding to change.
"In politics, when you have what is called a mass democratic party, it attracts all kinds of people, the good, the bad, the ugly, the brave, the cowards, the greedy, the hungry...it attracts everybody so you learn to live with that," he told the Trinidad Express.
Panday said he will die fighting for the people and when the time comes for internal party elections, the people will decide.
Warner has never suggested that Panday should leave or that the former prime minister is the problem within the UNC. He has always been a great admirer of Panday whom he describes as the best politician in the country. But he wants Panday to use his experience to reform the party.
"Let me make it very clear. I have no strife with Mr Panday neither inside nor outside of the party. This is not a Jack Warner versus Panday issue," he explained in an interview with the Express.
Warner said the youth of the party have been clamouring for change in the party that they see as a "dinosaur". He is convinced that the UNC's future is in attracting the youth of the nation, not just with members over 50 and 60 years of age.
He claimed other UNC members share that view but prefer not to speak out publicly about it for fear of offending Panday. Warner believes a secret ballot would show an overwhelming call for change in the UNC.
Warner also dismissed rumours that he and Opposition Chief whip Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj are plotting to take over the party. However he insists that Panday must take charge and begin the restructuring of the party before the local Government elections.
"Friday after Friday I sit down and watch these boys and girls who cannot even run a parlour, run this country and inside I weep. It need not be so. We have many bright people in our country and yet we have a foreigner heading major institutions in this country," he lamented.
He said he is not prepared to let that continue. "At the end of the day I will continue to call for change throughout the length and breath of the country and if my cries for change are not heeded and go unanswered, I will simply walk away into the sunset, I have no problem with that, but I will not sit down and knowingly participate in an organisation that refuses to reform itself," Warner said.
Read the Guardian editorial: 800-pound Gorilla in UNC House
Read Jai Parasram's 2007 column on political unity: Political lessons from Canada
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