Kamla alone can't decide on PP membership: Warner

Jack Warner (Express photo)

Jack Warner is not accepting the unilateral decision of Kamla Persad-Bissessar to reject his application for membership in the People's Partnership.

The leader of the partnership said on Sunday and repeated it on Monday night that Warner's Independent Liberal Party (ILP) is not welcome in the People's Partnership. "There is no vacancy, no room," she said at a UNC meeting Monday night.

She wondered why Warner would want to join the partnership when he is contesting the July 29 election against a candidate who has been endorsed by the PP. She went beyond that and accused the former cabinet minister of collusion with the PNM.

However, Warner said he is not bothered. He told local media it is not up to Persad-Bissessar to make the decision about membership in the coalition.

There are four members in the PP - the UNC, the Congress of the People (COP), the Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) and the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC). One of the founding members, the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) has left the coalition although the leader who committed MSJ to the partnership remains in government.

"The cabal politics is exclusion so she may have said those words not really meaning what she had said and it is left for us to judge in the future how serious she is," Warner told the media.

"Additionally, I do not know if she consulted with the other political leaders before she said so because she does not own the Partnership...So I will be very surprised if all four of them took that position. But again I say, those were not her words."

Warner also said he is still friendly with some members of the UNC especially Winston Gypsy Peters and Dr. Fuad Khan, who supported him before he left the UNC. He says anyone who wishes to leave the UNC and join his party would be welcome.