COP not keen on celebration but party leader will attend May 24 PP rally

File: COP leader Prakash Ramadhar ... will attend May 24 rally

Prakash Ramadhar will attend the May 24 rally in Chaguanas to celebrate the second anniversary of the People's Partnership victory in the general election of 2010.

COP chairman Joseph Toney confirmed on Friday while he believes the celebration is "inappropriate", Ramadhar will attend to deliver what he described as a "special message".

COP is holding a retreat on Saturday at San Salvador Estate, Gran Couva and the party has said the leader will hold a media briefing at the end of the event.

Toney made the comment at a ceremony Friday to install an interim constituency committee for Lopinot/Bon Air West. Former COP chairman Roy Agustus will head the committee until elections are held on June 20.

The former executive resigned en masse earlier in the week to show their dissatisfaction with the representation by their MP, Dr Lincoln Douglas. They also announced that they plan to join the United National Congress (UNC).

Toney said he felt the anniversary celebration on Thursday might send the wrong signals to people who feel that the partnership has not done enough to keep its promises to the electorate.

However he told reporters Ramadhar confirmed to him that he will attend and that he will deliver an address at the meeting. "Maybe he wants to say something special next week Thursday," Toney said.

Toney disagreed with the view expressed by COP deputy chairman Vernon de Lima who said this week that the partnership is dead. He noted that COP remains "an integral part of the People’s Partnership and it is our duty to bang down the doors to ensure that we get what we promised the people.”

The COP chairman also commented on a claim by some COP members that the planned defection to the UNC by the former executive members of the party’s Lopinot/Bon Air West constituency amounts to poaching.