Dookeran ready for political war as COP moves into POS

Winston Dookeran told supporters in Barrackpore Tuesday neither Prime Minister Patrick Manning nor United National Congress (UC) leader Basdeo Panday can stop the Congress of the People (COP) from marching forward.

"I intend to take them both on for we will not allow Manday to stop the Congress of the People," he told COP members at the party's final weekly meeting for 2009.

“I have come here with the signals of war. There is too much at stake. Our parents worked and worked under difficult circumstances. There is so much at stake in our lives,” he said as he spoke of the sacrifices cane farmers and sugar workers made for their families and the nation.

He promised political victory as their reward.

"Anyone who wants to go into government will have to come to us for us to take them there," he said. And he offered an invitation to anyone who wants to join the party.

"The doors are open, please come forward and let us go into government together," Dookeran said.

He said it is time for people to discard a government with a failed track record that is the result of corruption and poor governance. It is also a time, he said, to reject old loyalties. He called on them to put the past behind and face the future with courage.

He said Manning and Panday represent the failure of the past 14 years and he reiterated the message that he has been carrying over the past weeks about alleged collusion between the two of them.

"My friends, the two leaders in Parliament have gotten together to impose a new constitution on the people of this country not to serve the interest of the people but to keep them in power at all times. That is the reality," he said.

And he had a strong, decisive message: "We must come and kick them out so that we can put men of honour and men of decency into the corridors of power."

Dookeran told his audience they must choose to be loyal to the principles of pride, courage and sacrifice, “which is what allowed your parents to bring us to where we are” and put in place a new generation of political leaders who are committed to equality, accountability and justice.

He said Manning and Panday would try to seduce voters with the race card again to divide the nation as they have done in the past and urged citizens to stop them in their tracks.

"For too long we have had our leaders dividing us on the basis of race and ethnicity…That is why we have to get prepared because 2010 is going to be the battle of our lifetime," he declared.

Dookeran spoke about the opening of COP’s new office in Port of Spain on Saturday to be called “the flagship house”, promising that it would be the place from where he would mobilize the East-West corridor “in the name of truth, justice and honesty and in the name of decency”.

His deputy, Prakash Ramadhar, would be located in San Fernando to work with the entire southern constituencies, he said.

And he had a parting shot for COP's former deputy leader, who defected when Panday offered her a seat in the Senate.

"Leave the UNC with Sharon Gopaul Mc Nicoll, where she is now singing for her supper and she is singing louder and louder every day," he said.