Monday is Nomination Day for the internal election of the United National Congress (UNC) and so far at least 12 people have already filed their papers.The party has confirmed that leadership candidates Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Kamla Persad-Bissessar have submitted submitting their nomination papers. They are trying to unseat the incumbent, Basdeo Panday.
Officials say 10 others have also submitted nomination forms as independents.
UNC deputy leader is running for then chairmanship, but has not filed his papers. Panday has also not yet submitted the relevant documents. He has promised to field a slate of candidates for each of the seats in the 18-member national executive.
Some of them might be elected unopposed since Warner is running an independent campaign with no team. He said he chose that route because he believes that encourages cliques and divisiveness. He said he will work with whoever is elected to the executive.
It is not clear who will oppose Warner. The Chaguanas West MP said Sunday night the Panday campaign is having difficulty finding a candidate to run against him. He said he is willing to take on both contenders, Wade Mark and Vasant Bharat.
Mark is a former UNC chairman and Bharat is the current vice-chairman.
There was a media report on national television Sunday night quoting "sources" as saying that former Chaguanas mayor Suruj Rambachan would run as an independent candidate against Warner.
But JYOTI's sources said that report is not true. Our sources did not say what post Rambachan would seek. He has told reporters to wait until Monday to see what he will do and even suggested that he may not run for any post.
Our sources say the most likely "prestige" positions that would attract Rambachan would be deputy leader or party organizer.
If he is running for one of three deputy leader posts he would likely come up against such contenders as Wade Mark, Roodal Moonilal and Tim Gopeesingh.
The January 24 election is the first in the UNC's 20-year history in which Panday is facing a challenge for the leadership.
Panday has said he is fit mentally and physically to lead, but has promised to leave "with joy in my heart" if the party chooses another leader. However, MPs who support Panday are not ready to leave him leave.
They have suggested that if he loses they would still support him in Parliament, which means that he would retain the office of leader of the opposition while the party leader would likely be confined to the parliamentary back benches.
Such a move would erode the leader's authority and undermine his or her ability to guide the party. That happened in in 2005 when Panday anointed Winston Dookeran as leader.
Dookeran was unelected unopposed as leader and Panday became chairman. But Dookeran complained that he was dealing with an obstructionist executive. He eventually resigned as formed the Congress of the People (COP) which was able to take away about 90,000 votes from the UNC.
Panday has never forgiven Dookeran for that because he believes that the UNC would have won the 2007 election in a two-way fight with the PNM.
The PNM won a majority of 26 o the 41 seats in that election but a majority of voters rejected the party in preference for COP and the UNC. COP won 148,000 votes but no seats.
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