Kamla gets an apology from COP

The deputy political leader of the Congress of the People (COP) has made a public apology to his opposite number in the United National Congress (UNC).

Speaking at a COP meeting Prakash Ramadhar referred to last Saturday's incident when COP members shouted down Kamla Persad-Bissessar when she mentioned the name of her party's leader, Basdeo Panday.

COP leader Winston Dookeran had invited Persad-Bissessar to address the COP meeting in a gesture of opposition solidarity. But when she spoke about Panday the crowd starting chanting, "No Panday, No Panday!"

Ramadhar said the booing was spontaneous and was never planned by anyone from the COP executive. He apologized and called on COP supporters to purge what he called the venom in politics.

“For whatever discomfort that our guests experienced, let me say I am sorry. No one should ever be invited into your home and be embarrassed,” Ramadhar said.

He described the incident as part of the dirty politics that the country inherited and urged COP members to strive to maintain the highest standards of politics in the country.

“If we continue to go along the lines of poking each other in the eye—an eye for an eye—we will all go blind,” Ramadhar said, using the words of Mahatma Gandhi. “We have to get rid of the venom from the politics. It has failed us in the past and it will fail us in the future,” he said.

The insult went beyond what Ramadhar called spontaneous booing.

In his speech Dookeran invited Persad-Bissessar and other UNC members to join COP, saying his party is the only one that can offer the right formula to win an election.

Read the story: Dookeran invites Kamla to join COP
Related: COP welcomes Kamla but says no Panday

Oropouche East MP Roodal Moonilal, who was a guest at the meeting, said afterwards he wanted to walk out but was persuaded by his colleagues not to create a scene.

Moonilal said Dookeran was out of place and COP supporters were rude to reject Panday since it was COP that invited the UNC and should accept the leader of the party.

Panday has since rejected the comments made by Dookeran, stating that COP has no standing since it has no seats in Parliament while the UNC has 15, a point also made by Moonilal.