Ramesh did deal with the PNM: Kamla

Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar has rejected criticism by Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj that she failed to offer proper advice to Prime Minister Basdeo Panday in 2001 and that led to the installation of Patrick Manning as Prime Minister.

Maharaj, who is running against Persad-Bissessar for the post of political leader of the United National Congress (UNC) in next month's UNC internal elections, made the charge while campaigning.

But Persad-Bissessar has shrugged off the accusation as nonsense.

Maharaj was referring to the political impasse following the general election Dec. 10, 2001 which ended up in a tie. Both the PNM and the UNC won 18 seats.

Immediately after the election Panday wrote to PNM leader Patrick Manning offering to form a government of national unity, which Manning rejected. However, both parties met and negotiated an accord to end the impasse. The Crowne Plaze accord stated that the leaders would abide by the decision of the president on appointing a prime minister.

As the incumbent and having won the higher popular vote, Panday expected President Robinson to follow parliamentary tradition and ask him to form a government and seek a confidence vote in Parliament or call fresh elections.

That was the advice Persad-Bissessar gave the president in a written submission on the impasse.

In it she pointed out that Panday had a right to be asked to form as government because he was the incumbent prime minister, that his party had won the higher popular vote and that under such circumstances the prevailing parliamentary tradition should apply.

Robinson ignored her advice and on Christmas eve exactly five years ago, he fired Panday and appointed Manning as Prime Minister, stating that he made the change to install a government of "morality and spirituality".

Maharaj suggested that had Persad-Bissessar properly advised the government Panday might have remained in office.

But she called that hypocritical, noting that it was Maharaj and his Team Unity (TU) that caused the tie and that Maharaj's mission was to get Panday out of office and install the PNM.

In an interview with JYOTI, she said it was Maharaj who went behind the back of Panday and negotiated a secret deal with then opposition leader Patrick Manning.

"We lost the Government because of deals he made with Manning to bring down the government. He and others within the UNC conspired with the PNM to overthrow a government that had just won a majarity. That's where it started," she said.

She said it is hypocritical for Maharaj to even suggest that “Kamla allowed her Prime Minister to be misled.”

The former attorney general stated that in the election of 2001 "Ramesh had one agenda only, and that was to mash up the UNC government and get Mr Panday out of office. He knew that his Team Unity could never win a seat, but that was not his intention. He just wanted Panday to lose."

The UNC won 49.9 per cent of the popular vote in 2001, with the PNM second at 46.5 per cent. Maharaj's Team Unity got only 2.5 per cent of the vote. The party had little impact across the country. However in the critical marginal seat of Tunapuna, the UNC lost because of the handful of votes that the TU candidate received.

Those votes came from UNC supporters who had defected to Team Unity and caused the PNM's Eddie Hart to win the seat. Tunapuna was the constituency that gave the UNC the one-seat majority in the 2000 election that returned the UNC to office.

In 2001 the PNM had 16 seats, the NAR 1 and the UNC 19. One year later the PNm tied with the UNC by winning the one NAR seat in Tobago and getting back Tunapuna.