Speaking with reporters at a news conference Joseph Toney said, "As far as I am concerned, at this point in time the People’s Partnership is a fragile entity, given the developments that took place last week."
His reference was to the defection of COP member Marlene Coudray to the United National Congress (UNC). Coudray was elected by the UNC membership as one of the party's three deputy political leaders in Saturday's UNC internal election.
Coudray, who is the mayor of San Fernando, said last week she left the COP a long time ago because she was unhappy with the party. She said she is comfortable with the UNC and that is where she wants to stay.
She also said contrary to what many people believe it was the UNC that supported and proposed her for the post of mayor although she was a member of the COP.
Coudray ran as the COP candidate for San Fernando West in the 2007 general election and lost to the PNM's Junia Regrello. In 2010 the party refused to nominate her again and handed the constituency to Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan, who won the seat and is now the Minister of Public Administration.
Toney told reporters he had not received any resignation letter from Coudray. "We still have with us the membership form of Marlene Coudray as a member of the COP.”
He also stated that the five members of the partnership must find a way to work together. Another member of the coalition, the Movement for Social Justice (MSJ), has also expressed concerns about the partnership and has asked for a meeting of all leaders.
According to Toney, "It is up to all of us to repair damage that may have been done last week and we do hope that can be done in the shortest possible time."
He added, "I don’t want to go into ultimatum, I don’t think that is proper or fair but we recognise there has been some damage caused. There have been some distrust created and we have to erase that if we are to gel and go forward."
Toney said his concerns are not personality driven but rather are based on how the partnership is organised. "The issue is how do we organise ourselves to work with one another in the People’s Partnership. That is the issue," he said.
The leadership of the partnership are meeting before the end of the month and Toney said he hopes those discussions will deal with issues that COP has raised, including one of "poaching". That's a charge that has been dismissed by both Coudray and the leaders of the UNC.
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