Panday-Warner showdown could go to court

Jack Warner plans to walk into the Lion's Den Wednesday to face his leader, Basdeo Panday, who is on the warpath because of the Chaguanas West MP's vote last Friday with the government to pass a bill that would have failed without Warner's vote.

Panday is on record as saying that Warner's action amounted to a serious breach of the party's rules and that he could face expulsion. He has also said it was clear evidence that Warner is a stooge of the People's National Movement (PNM).

Last week when Warner went to the caucus and national executive meeting his colleagues walked out on him, saying they didn't trust him. Warner subsequently left and the meeting was canceled for lack of a quorum.

On Wednesday Warner has promised to go the the weekly caucus where Panday will push for action against his deputy leader.

Warner is determined to fight any attempt to kick him out of the party even if it means going to court. And that is exactly where this feud is heading.

Warner plans to change his strategy for Wednesday's meeting and remain at the meeting if the colleagues walk out on him again. He is counting on the legality of that since holding the meeting anywhere else when he was present for the discussions would constitute a breach of process.

Warner has repeatedly dismissed talk of disloyalty, which has intensified since his vote with the PNM.

He has made it clear again that there is nothing the PNM can give him that he does not already have - wealth, social standing, international stature and respect from a wide cross-section of the national population.

Since becoming a member of Parliament he has donated all but one dollar of his monthly salary to charity through a foundation that he has set up in his Chaguanas West constituency. And on Tuesday he will hand out nine scholarships for young people in his constituency to attend university.

Warner has mounted a movement for change that aims to re-brand the United National Congress (UNC) as a modern, caring people's movement based on its founding principles, which he says the current leadership has abandoned.

His Caravan for Change is a bold, proactive communication medium to inform and educate UNC members about what change means and how it is to be achieved with the participation and consent of the people.

He said as he travels through UNC and PNM areas the message is consistent: Panday must go. He has acknowledged that Panday has done a tremendous job for the people and for the nation and insists that nobody is asking him to disappear from the national stage.

However he believes that by holding on to power when people are demanding that he leave Panday is destroying his own legacy.

Warner challenged Panday to call a public meeting to show that he still has the support he claims to have.

On Saturday, Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar attended a congress of the Congress of the People (COP) and made an appeal for both parties to unite. She was there on the invitation of COP leader Winston Dookeran and with the blessing of her leader.

But the COP membership made it clear that they want nothing to do with Panday and the COP leader invited Persad-Bissessar to join COP.