UNC nothing yet

January 28, 2010 by Edmund Gall

UNC MP Vasant Bharath and ex-Chairman of the Membership Committee Kelvin Ramnath hosted a news conference yesterday to give further details on the alleged discovery of boxes containing "thousands" of undistributed UNC membership cards at Rienzi Complex, home of the UNC's administrative offices.  It was carried live by media houses on the Internet and reported in today's papers, such as Anna Ramdass's article in the Trinidad Express.

I looked at the news conference via C News' live Internet broadcast Internet yesterday and was left a bit confused. The feed continued for a few seconds after the end of the news conference. It was during this time, I heard Mr Ramnath say that his own card may have been in the pile, and Mr Bharath replied that he found his in the pile.  Unless I misheard, if the non-issuance of the cards leads to persons being omitted from the voters list, how come these two gentlemen were able to vote?  Mr Ramnath admitted that the preliminary membership list was circulated to all candidates and constituency offices and apart from a handful of requests from Mr Jack Warner, no requests for changes were made.

They complained about poor office administration, lack of support for Mr Ramnath and said their intention was not to question the election results but rather to inform the public of a suspicious discovery in the offices by staff preparing for the handover to the new executive. At the end of it, I quite frankly was left with the feeling that here was a bunch of poor-me-ones trying to deflect public attention from the winds of change by claiming some fraud occurred.  Their hinting of the possibility of some member of the public seeking court-room clarification on this discovery was puzzling: clarification of what?

In management, there is collective responsibility for governance. If anything, this discovery just shows how pathetic the whole of the ex-management committee of the UNC were in terms of organising their affairs, especially when added to their inability to maintain as fundamental and basic a thing as a proper members list, lack of public clarity regarding the rules about voting eligibility, and their forcing Tobago's members to travel to T&T to vote.

Another irony: the Trinidad Express reports that the same Glen Ramadharsingh, accused of incompetence by Mr Ramnath, has been appointed as the new General Secretary by the new executive.

Elsewhere, MPs who are reportedly supporters of the defeated ex-leader, Mr Basdeo Panday, said they saw no need to rush any decision regarding making the new leader, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament.  I wonder, if there was no need to rush, how come there was some agreement before the election for Mr Panday to remain as Opposition Leader no matter what happened in the election?  Why the need for haste then?  Wouldn't the swift election of Mrs Persad-Bissessar as the Opposition Leader be clearly required to maintain focus on your most important goal, viz. replacing the incumbent PNM in the next general elections?

Never a dull moment.  It appears that in T&T, politics not only has a morality of its own, but also a unique stance on logic.  In fact, to me, it appears too frequently that logic is unwelcome in our political landscape.  T&T waits to see if the new UNC executive changes this perception and are more competent governors of their own affairs as a necessary, albeit insufficient, measure of their candidacy as a viable alternative government.

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