Dyer-Griffith: COP is the ‘one per cent party’

YVONNE WEBB

Questions have been raised about whether Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan got a convincing mandate in the Congress of the People (COP) leadership election, which saw approximately one per cent of its membership voting on Sunday.

Former PP minister Nicole Dyer-Griffith, who had also wanted to run for the party leadership, said it is an embarrassment that the result has moved the party from being identified as the “Congress of the Person” to “the one per cent political party.”

Official results presented by chairman of the elections committee Ricardo Rambally showed only 589 of the 40,000-strong membership showed up to vote at the 14 polling stations across the country. The leadership race was contested by Seepersad-Bachan and Dr Sharon Gopaul-McNicol.

Seepersad-Bachan was declared the winner with a “landslide” of 416 votes. Her opponent garnered 168. There were two spoiled ballots and three others were rejected.

Dyer-Griffith, who was denied the opportunity three times to contest the election, said this made Seepersad-Bachan a minority leader. She blamed the internal wrangling of a small faction for the outcome and questioned whether being given this brand was worth it.

Admitting it was a hollow victory, Seepersad-Bachan said there was a lot of disenchantment in the party, but felt the numerous legal challenges created a lot of uncertainty for members and this contributed to the low voter turnout. She said many people thought the election had been cancelled, and up until Saturday night the party had to keep convincing people that it was on.

Dyer-Griffith said, via telephone, 3,000-plus members had indicated support for her candidacy, and yesterday expressed disappointment that they were not afforded the opportunity to vote for her. However, she was not in support of scrapping the process and getting a fresh mandate, saying once the players remained the same, the outcome would be no different.

Also expressing disappointment at the low turnout was former COP leader Dr Anirudh Mahabir. He attributed it to a lack of confidence in a third party in the country, which primarily has a two-party system, except for the coalitions which brought into power the United National Congress (UNC) under Basdeo Panday and subsequently the People’s Partnership under Kamla Persad-Bissessar.

He also offered this explanation, “The COP may be suffering from the fact there has been so much in-fighting for such a long time that many people are fed up and do not want to continue, because they do not see a clear path where they are going to. So, it seems that the party’s original pathway has been clouded because so many people have been fighting over small things and the population is therefore losing confidence in the party.”

He said he was not certain Seepersad-Bachan had the ability to bring unity and stability to the party, as it considers contesting the next general election, to bring the party back to its glory days.

“An individual alone would not be able to bring that party back to where it was. She would need to have a group of people who are consistent in their thought, who are honest, who are good politicians. They must all work very hard. A leader must consider the leadership as a full time job. Those of us who do it part time would never succeed.”

Mahabir said he was willing to assist if called upon to do so.

But the woman who placed second, Gopaul-Mc Nicol, said it did not matter if she received one per cent or more, the system under which the COP operates is “winner takes all” and therefore, Seepersad-Bachan has the mandate to govern the party for the next three years.

“That’s our policy. We don’t have a system that says if you win by one or you win by a million, you win.

That’s our system, and unless we change it and we come up with another system, that’s it. She had a mandate and she has won.”