Panday ready to quit if that's what people want

The leader of the United National Congress (UNC) said on Sangeet 106.1 FM radio on Thursday morning he is willing to listen to the views of his people.

Basdeo Panday said that he will step down if the people want him to do so. However he said that at the last party election two years ago it was clear that party members wanted him to stay.

Some members who are lobbying for Panday to quit have jumped on that statement and accused the former prime minister of being dishonest.

They say the UNC has not had an internal election since the one in which Winston Dookeran was elected leader unopposed in 2005. Panday was elected UNC Chairman in that vote and he declared, "Winston and I will unite the UNC".

That never happened.

Instead, Dookeran quit the leadership, formed the Congress of the People (COP), which became the UNC's arch rival in the 2007 general election, and picked up nearly 100,000 of the votes that had gone to the UNC in the 2002 election.

Dookeran rejected all Panday's appeals to rejoin the UNC, and on election night 2007, Panday blamed the COP leader for the UNC's loss.

Read the speech: Basdeo Panday verbatim: 11.30 p.m. Nov. 5, 2007

Dookeran's departure ahead of the 2007 election left a leadership void which was never filled through the normal internal election process. Instead Panday was named leader by the party's executive and he and Jack Warner became the UNC's joint leaders in the Leadership Council of the UNC Alliance, which was formed to fight the 2007 election.

There has been no internal election since the 2005 vote and now there is a movement for Panday to leave premised on the argument that Panday is the biggest impediment to opposition unity.

His own party is now split in two camps, one dubbed a "dissident" group led by Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner, also known as "RAMJACK" for Warner's association with Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj. Panday leads the other group.

The "RAMJACK" group is demanding that the party change, settle its leadership issues through the long-overdue internal election and reinvent itself to be able to win an election against the PNM.

Warner has produced a Manifesto for change that outlines this approach and is seeking feedback from members of the party until the end of July.

Related: Warner's Manifesto for change honours Basdeo Panday

Panday has insisted that Warner is part of a conspiracy to "mash up" the UNC and that he is doing it as an ally of the governing People's National Movement, a charge that Warner has dismissed.

Panday rejects outright any talk of internal elections now, saying the party's national executive has agreed to defer the vote until after the local government election, which is constitutionally due this year.

That is one of Warner's key arguments. He claims that the party cannot win an election in its present state and that's why the election must be held now.

That's why some of Warner's supporters are incensed by the statement Panday made Thursday morning and suggest that he was being dishonest when he spoke about being elected leader two years ago.

"You did not face an internal election since then (2005), you were illegally selected as Political Leader by a few persons of your executive. If what you say is true, then call the internal election now and let the people decide who they wish to lead them," said one email from an angry Warner supporter.