Panday ready to fight for control of UNC national executive

Basdeo Panday with his wife, Oma, and politician daughter, Mickela

Basdeo Panday has dusted his political armour and is getting ready to fight to "take back" the United National Congress (UNC) from the present leadership, which he claims has betrayed the party.

The founding leader of the UNC, who led the party in government for six years, is the adviser to a group called "Generation Next", which is running for office in the March internal election of the UNC. Panday, 78, has said he won't be running for office.

Two years ago he faced his first challenge to his leadership ever and was defeated 10-1 by Kamla Persad-Bissessar. The UNC has had one other political leader - Winston Dookeran. However Panday literally handed the party to Dookeran and there was no contest since Dookeran was the only canidate.

In 2010 Persad-Bissessar defeated two UNC heavyweights - Panday and Ramesh L. Maharaj - to take charge of the party.

Panday has never accepted the defeat but still voted for the People's Partnership (PP), because he wanted to see the PNM out of office.

Now as he prepares to for battle within the UNC he is claiming that the government has reneged on promises and its members are more interested in their personal interests.

He told the Trinidad Express that the party is now dead. "It no longer functions as a Party but as an appendage to the PP Government for organising fetes, filling stamped addressed envelopes and awarding CEPEP contracts to friends and families." 

His view is that the leadership has abandoned "all that the UNC stood for". He wants to change that, but is careful to add that he doesn't want to see the collapse of the new government.

"Our present struggle is not to remove the Government but to force it to perform on the promises it made to the people," he added.

"I am sad that after so much blood, sweat and tears of so many thousands of persons over the past 21 years, the UNC has gone this way. That is why I have agreed to lend my services to those thousands of dedicated and loyal soldiers who wish to put the party back on track," he told the paper.

He said UNC members have appealed to him for help.

"They claim that opportunists, sycophants, and johnnies-come-lately are reaping the fruits of their labour while they are treated with scant courtesy by the Government," he said.

"They complain also that they can no longer reach their parliamentary representatives who have become Ministers or members of the Government."

Panday's "Generation Next" is seeking to take control of the party and keep it separate from government.

Panday is leading the charge based on an idea he has tried in the past, that is that no government minister, except the prime minister, should hold a post on the national executive of the party.

He said when a Government member is also an officer of the party the Government controls the National Executive of the party.

Panday said the upcoming battle for the UNC is not about him or his track record but about the future of the party and the country. "It is about Trinidad and Tobago in 2012 and the problems we face now," he said.