Revolt against Panday from Couva North

All members of the executive of the Couva North Constituency have resigned, complaining that they can no longer work on behalf of their MP, Basdeo Panday.

But United National Congress (UNC) Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar refused to accept the resignation, which was also sent to Panday, and urged the executive to continue working on behalf of constituents.

“I am not prepared to accept the resignation...I want to ask them to hold their resignation until we put the party together,” she said Monday.

The executive is unhappy with Panday, who lost his bid to retain the party's leadership in last month's UNC internal election. Persad-Bissessar won the post in a landslide in a three-way race involving herself, Panday and Tabaquite MP Ramesh L. Maharaj.

Panday has refused to concede although he scored just over 1300 votes to Persad-Bissessar's 13,000. He has said there were too many irregularities and has demanded a public investigation into the election process.

He walked out of a caucus meeting last week when he failed to get members to consider his motion for a probe. His brother and daughter - both of them MPs - along with Couva South MP Kelvin Ramnath, walked with him. Two Senators also walked out, Dr Adesh nanan and M.F. Rahman.

The executive is angry with the manner in which Panday has conducted himself. Constituency Chiarman and th. They say his actions are hurting the party as it tries to move on and have insisted that they cannot continue to work with him.

Panday has represented Couva North since 1976 but his support among his own constituents has dwindled; in 2007 he won his seat with a minority of votes.

Constituency chairman, Deputy Mayor of Chaguanas Orlando Nagessar, told a UNC meeting Monday the decision was promppted by Panday's poor representation.

He said the executive agreed with an assessemnt by constituents of Panday’s non-performance, noting a steady decline in support for Panday since the 2007 general elections.

He said the displeasure was openly displayed during the January 24 party elections. “I have never seen such deliberate verbal abuse from UNC supporters,” Nagessar said.

“We felt as a matter of principle to allow Mr Panday to get a new constituency executive...It was a very agonising decision but we felt as an executive that the situations that have arisen during the last few months compelled us to do it,” Nagassar said.

Despite the rejection of his closest allies, Panday continues to hold on the post of Opposition leader.

Since taking office as the new UNC leader, Persad-Bissessar has tried to stay out of the controversy over Panday's continued role as leader of the opposition.

She is on record as saying that moving Panday from is not a priority since she can continue to do her work as leader without holding the official title.

A change is possible only if a majority of opposition MPs advise the president that they no longer support Panday. There are 15 opposition MPs and UNC sources have told JYOTI that Persad-Bissessar has the majority to oust Panday.

Before the internal election, 10 MPs signed a letter of unconditional support for Panday as UNC leader. Since then at least two of them - Harry Partap and Nizam Baksh - have switched support for the new leader.

Jack Warner and Winston "Gypsy" Peters have always supported her and JYOTI understands that Roodal Moonilal, Tim Gopeesingh and Chandresh Sharma are ready to support Persad-Bissessar for Opposition Leader. That would give Persad-Bissessar the required majority.

Panday insists that he cannot hand over the leadership because the MPs are the ones who have to decide where their support lies and advise the president accordingly.