UNC rejects 16,000 applications for membership

The United National Congress (UNC) decided Wednesday to reject all 16,000 new applications for membership.

The membership drive was for the party's internal election on January 24, 2010.

The decision to toss out the thousands of applications is because the membership committee is unable to complete the process in time for the vote.

Membership committee chairman Kelvin Ramnath said Tuesday it is "humanly impossible" to complete the task before next week.

Read the story: UNC membership list not ready; executive to hold crisis talks

Applications for membership in the party closed on Dec. 18, 2009 and the the preliminary list of members was supposed to be made available to MP's since January 2, 2010.

But the party missed that deadline as well as a second, set for January 6.

Ramnath said he informed the National Executive on Wednesday that it was impossible to investigate all 16,000 applications to ensure that they were in fact bona fide.

"We made a recommendation to the Executive which was approved today, that we are not in a position given the timeframe and the volume of applications to carry out the investigation that is required before someone is accepted," Ramnath told reporters.

Executive members Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Jack Warner and Suruj Rambachan were not present at the meeting.

Ramnath said the provisional electoral list was released Wednesday and persons had until January 11 to raise any concerns. Ramnath said about 34,000 members would be eligible to vote in the January 24 elections.