Can Couva North be Panday's Waterloo?

When Jack Warner's Platform for Change bandwagon rolls into Jerry Junction Friday afternoon, it would be the strongest challenge yet to Basdeo Panday, the first time Panday has ever faced such a powerful broadside from one of his own.

Friday evening could be Panday's Waterloo.

Panday has been the MP for Couva North from the day he entered the House of Representatives in 1976 as the leader of the United Labour Front.

In 2000, when he was prime minister, Panday polled 14,383 votes with 79 per cent of the popular vote. A year later, in his fight with Ramesh L. Maharaj and his Team Unity he dropped two per cent but rose again to 14,157 votes in the 2002 election, although with a smaller percentage of the popular vote.

By 2007, however, following a prolonged internal battle that saw his anointed leader Winston Dookeran leave to form the Congress of the People (COP). Panday's support declined dramatically in the constituency that he held for decades.

He dropped nearly 6,000 votes, getting only 8,428 votes with PNM rookie Nal Ramsingh coming a close second with 5,249 votes and 29 per cent of the popular vote. In the absence of the COP's Hulsie Bhaggan, who polled 4,409 votes, Panday's safe seat was at risk for the first time; he won with less than 50 per cent of the popular vote.

It was a clear sign that Panday was becoming a shadow of the political warrior who fought and won countless battles on behalf the masses; the "Bloody Tuesday" hero, it seemed, had started to lose his sting.

It is against this background that Warner is challenging Panday on his own turf.

In 2007 the party had risen out of intensive care thanks to the efforts of a powerful united alliance that included Ramesh L. Maharaj and Warner. Together with Panday they mounted a credible campaign, proved every pollster wrong and won 15 seats.

It was a remarkable recovery for a party that had risen from the ashes. But the fighting that had plagued the UNC for more than a year took a heavy toll and chased away nearly 90,000 loyal supporters.

The party lost 89,231 votes and dropped 16.9 per cent in the five years between the elections. And all of it went to COP. It certainly didn't go to the PNM, which also lost 8,994 votes over the same time.

And COP did something more. Its campaign of new politics attracted a hidden constituency in addition to the disenchanted UNC and PNM supporters. Of the 148,041 votes it received, 49,816 were from "others" - those were didn't care to vote before and the young, upwardly mobile who had lost faith in the old politics of the PNM and the UNC and were looking for a viable alternative.

That constituency is still there and it's growing. And that's the one Warner is targeting, hoping that he could get the UNC to change in order to meet the challenges of the 21st century and unite all the opposition - including COP - into a single, viable alternative to the PNM.

It is the UNC's ticket to Whitehall and Warner is convinced that he is holding it in his hand with the people standing with him.

Read the story: Warner's manifesto for change honours Basdeo Panday

Warner has taken his cue from the message in the statistics, a clear signal that something had changed in the demographics and the traditional loyalties. COP had appealed to that silent constituency as well as nearly 90,000 traditional voters.

He tried without success to register that message inside the party and when the UNC refused to pay attention he went public, drawing the wrath of his leader and those loyal to Panday.

Read Warner's manifesto for Change

That has led to the current warfare, which is more intense than any political battle Panday has ever fought. Rather than walk away, Warner is going for the jugular and challenging Panday in the UNC heartland.

He already controls Chaguanas West and now he is moving in with full force into neighbouring Couva North with Panday unable to do anything about it.

And if his Friday launch can attract the thousands he expects it would send a clear signal that the 8,424 people who stained their fingers for Panday in 2007 might be having second thoughts about their MP's ability to continue to represent them and, more importantly, to lead the party.

For the first time Panday could be facing defeat from inside.

It would a tragedy for him and a most humiliating fall for a man who fought a valiant campaign from the trenches to Whitehall for four decades on behalf of the ordinary, dispossessed and disadvantaged.

It would be a double tragedy because when the political history is written, Panday's legacy would be obscured by the final battle for the soul of the party he founded and launched on a rainy day in 1989, inviting all to join a crusade to which people would flock not because of the colour of their skins but by the content of their minds.

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Jai Parasram | Toronto, Aug. 14, 2009