Panday suggests Warner and Manning have a deal to "mash up" the UNC

Just when you think it cannot get worse, it does. I'm talking about the feud in the United National Congress (UNC) between its leader, former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, and one of the three Deputy Political Leaders, Jack Warner.

For quite some time the worst kept secret was that there was tension between both men who stood together in the last election and almost won an election when all the pundits had written off the UNC as a spent force and were crowing about the new kid on the block, the Congress of the People (COP) led by Winston Dookeran.

Dookeran had been the annointed leader of the UNC but shortly after taking office found it impossible to do his job because of what he said was obstructionism from those within the hierarchy who didn't want change, mainly Panday.

Panday never accepted that and pointed out that leaders don't need permission to lead and suggested that Dookeran lacked the qualities of leadership and didn't have the confidence of the people. Whatever the truth, Dookeran parted company with Panday and the UNC and formed COP. Warner, who ran on Dookeran's team and won the post of deputy leader didn't agree with Dookeran's points of view, deserted Dookeran and embraced Panday.

Warner and Panday courted other small parties and created the UNC Alliance (UNC-A), which went on to win 15 of the seats in the 41-seat Parliament. But the results showed that there was a signficant percentage of disenchanted UNC supporters who were willing to change and accept Dookeran's "new politics" - 148,000 of them.

The tensions that saw the birth of the UNC-A never went away and now they are spilling into the public domain.

What is happening today is not new in the politics of opposition in Trinidad and Tobago. Over the past four decades Panday has fought and reunited with so many of his political colleagues I have lost track.

Long before there was a UNC he was fighting Raffique Shah in the United Labour Front (ULF), who usurped the office of the Leader of the Opposition for a while in the 1976 Parliament. Then there was the loose alliance with Tapia's Lloyd Best and the Democratic Action Congress (DAC) of Arthur N. R. Robinson in 1981 which blossomed into the "one-love" National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) that merged all the opposition parties into a single political entity in 1986.

The resulting political tsunami - created in part by the governing People's National Movement's (PNM) corruption and weak leadership by George Chambers, who had inherited the party on the death of its founder, Dr Eric Williams - swept the PNM out of office and installed Robinson as leader. But the lopsided 33-3 victory gave Robinson the power to dispense with those who didn't embrace his political philosophy - the left-leaning ULF. Panday and some of his loyalists walked away.

It was that team that became first of all CLUB 88 - Committee of Love, Understanding and Brotherhood - which was formed through the inititaive of Panday, Dr Allan McKenzie and others like Kelvin Ramnath and my brother, Dr Rampersad Parasram. On a rainy day in Aranguez in 1989 the political caterpillar metamorphized into the UNC with Parasram as its founding chairman.

But all was not well and Panday eventually dispensed with both Ramnath and Parasram and brought in Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Wade Mark who helped reorganize the party and eventually, with what Panday has often described as "a pick-up side", went into government in 1995 in a formal coalition with Panday's political arch-rival, Robinson.

Robinson, who had never really forgiven Panday for his revolt in the NAR administration, eventually had his revenge. First he became an obstructionist in cabinet and when Panday removed that problem by making Robinson president of the country, he created another one.

As president, Robinson fought Panday and eventually staged the palace coup that put Patrick Manning in office following the 18-18 tie in the 2001 election. Only a year before Panday had led the UNC to a majority victory over the PNM but the government fell under the weight of allegations of corruption made by Panday's own Attorney General, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who along with his parliamentary colleagues Ralph Maraj and Trevor Sudama, had planned their own coup with Manning to take over the government from Panday.

Panday pulled the rug from under their feet and called a snap election. Maharaj and his Team Unity, which had won internal elections, the results of which Panday never accepted, created enough damage to shut the doors of Whitehall to Panday.

And all this brings us to today. Maharaj returned to the UNC with Panday's blessing but the UNC membership never truly accepted him. But his organizational skills and Warner's money were necessary parts of the equation that helped put 15 MPs in the new Parliament.

But the spectre of change that has always sent shivers through the UNC is again present and when Warner and Maharaj failed to get Panday and the national executive to accelerate the change, Warner went public.

In an interview with television journalist Sunil Ramdeen Warner said the UNC risked becoming irrelevant by its resistance to change and suggested that there is a clique within the party's establishment that is content to maintain the status quo instead of moving forward. He also said there was a mood of restlessness among younger people who want change.

That was evident in the results of the 2007 general election and Warner felt that a united opposition would be able to crush the PNM. Panday took offence at that and initially gave both Maharaj and Warner the cold shoulder while insisting that he would not discuss party matters in public.

But when Warner appeared to make a play for Panday's constituency the gloves came off. It happened last Sunday when Warner pledged $1 million of his own money as part of the startup capital for a new company to take over the Hindu Credit Union (HCU) which the government put into receivership. Tens of thousands of people - mainly traditional UNC supporters - lost signficant sums of money with the HCU collapse. Now Warner was offering hope that they might yet see some, or perhaps, all of that money.

Panday's first reaction was to knock down the plan, saying only the government has the resources necessary to revive the HCU. Warner had told the HCU shareholder that the government didn't care about them because they were lesser citizens in the eyes of the Manning regime, citing the double standards applied in rescue of CL Financial while leaving the HCU in the cold.

Panday took it further to implore his supporters to stay away from Warner's plan and disavowed any knoweledge of it as a UNC inititaive. He wanted to know who would be involved in handling so much money - $300 million - and cautioned people to be wary of "schemers", a veiled reference to Warner.

Warner lashed back and wondered why his money was good to help Panday personally and to fund the party but it was not acceptable when he wanted to help "poor indian people".

Now Panday is asking for Warner to account for the money he spent in the UNC. "I think the party deserves a written statement of all that expenditure he is talking about, where it came from and where it went," Panday told the Trinidad Guardian.

And Panday added another element, accusing Warner of a plot with Manning to destroy the UNC. The UNC leader was talking about a a two-hour meeting Warner had with Manning at the prime minister's official residence last month at Manning's request. They exchanged pleasantries, Manning asked about sports and wondered whether Warner was enjoying his new adventure in politics. They parted company and Manning invited Warner to drop by "any time".

That has Panday suspicious. “Since when does the prime minister handle sport, people are asking me," Panday said. "The PNM must be frightened for Local Government polls if the general election result... with further cutbacks, they will obviously have even less support and we’ve seen it happen in Tobago already. So they need the UNC immobilised.” He said that's what the Manning-Warner meeting was really about.

Now Warner and Maharaj face possible explusion for indiscipline, an issue they have pledged to fight. Warner said on Tuesday it is a fight he would win.

“Members of the disciplinary team must be appointed by the executive and the National Congress. The congress meets in March. When the team is incorporated, the disciplinary committee will carry on its business,” said Panday.

But not everybody supports such a move, which creates an uncomfortable atmosphere within the caucus and the national executive. It seems like war and Panday is not hanging up his armour.

"If you ask me when the war will end, it will be when the other side is vanquished. I will do my duty to the best of my ability.”

And as always, the vanquished are not the politicians, but the people. They looked to the UNC and the UNC-A for hope; they supported and voted for them and now their representatives are ready to once more betray them.

Warner is taking this in stride. He has told his constituents and other supporters, "I have no intention of descending into the gutter with Panday or anyone else for that matter...what's happening today is only the dark cloud. The silver lining is behind."

One top UNC member expects things to sort themselves out and has a philosophical take on it. "The only lesson we have learnt from history is that we never learn the lessons of history," he said.