Warner, Dookeran keep unity flame ablaze

Jack Warner and Winston Dookeran are getting closer, following their recent breakfast "love-in" in Port of Spain to rekindle their political relationship.

In media release Wednesday, Warner's office said the Chaguanas West MP and the leader of the Congress of the People (COP) will share a platform on Sunday at Divali celebrations in Felicity. Dookeran will deliver the feature address at the event.

The relationship between both men had been strained for years.

The problems started shortly after Dookeran and Warner ran on a single ticket in the last internal election of the United National Congress in which Dookeran was elected UNC leader unopposed and Warner won one of the three posts of Deputy Leader.

UNC Leader Basdeo Panday had stepped aside and personally nominated Dookeran for the top party post, but tension between Dookeran and the national executive led to a formal break, with Dookeran leaving the UNC and forming COP.

Warner disagreed with that move and embraced Panday instead and in the 2007 general election he and Panday ran a joint campaign as leaders of the UNC Alliance. But since then the relationship between Panday and Warner had grown cold.

Last month Dookeran and Warner met in Port of Spain for what Warner called "a love scene". It was the first time in three years that the two men embraced each other publicly.

Read the story: Warner, Dookeran rekindle political love affair.

They agreed to meet again in an attempt "to fashion a common understanding on certain key political issues".

The release said Warner, who is in Cairo, Egypt attending the FIFA Under 20 World Cup, was elated to learn that the COP leader had accepted his invitation to deliver the feature address.

"When my Constituency decided to host the third annual celebrations, I immediately contemplated on having Mr. Dookeran deliver the feature address.

"Subsequent to my first meeting with him last month, scores of my constituents had urged me to continue talks with him as they felt that positive political objectives could be derived.

"He was therefore the obvious and instant choice to speak to the people of Chaguanas and wider Trinidad & Tobago on the auspicious occasion of Divali," Warner said.

He noted that it would be "something of a homecoming" for Dookeran who was MP for the area before he was defeated by the UNC's Hulsie Bhaggan. In 2007, Warner ran against the Manohar Ramsaran, who had defected to COP, and won a landslide.

Warner believes it's time to put past battles behind and move on.

"I am positive that his message would be well received and that it could lead to bigger and brighter things in the future," Warner said adding that he intends to speak to Dookeran about scheduling future meetings to begin to "strategise on a political formula to defeat the PNM in the next election."