Mickela gets mandate to form new party

IT was billed as a “meet and greet” with former UNC MP Mickela Panday to get the views of the people.

By the middle of the open-floor session, Panday took the microphone and asked the overflowing hall of people at Gaston Courts, Chaguanas, if they wanted to start a new political party.

Their response was a resounding “Yes.”

“We need to decide where we need to go. Just to tell us where you want us to go, if it is that you don’t want to form a political party, we will listen to you but the question is “Do you think we should form a political party?” she had asked.

Those in the audience erupted in cheers, shouting in the affirmative.

“Do you think we should form a political party?” she repeated. Again it was a deafening, “Yes.”

The meeting’s chairman, Dr Ronald Roopnarine, then declared: “Then we have a consensus.”

“This is not an effort by me or by her, it is everybody so to do that we have some information we will require from you. We will need volunteers, armies of human resources. We don’t have the financial backing as other parties but we will fight them with human resources,” he said.

Earlier in her remarks, Panday said the nation had reached a “crossroads” as there was a “deepening sense of despair and a worsening sense of hopelessness.”

She said the solutions to the nation’s problems were known, but nothing was being done by either of the two major political parties.

“Your presence here today reinforces that there is hope for our nation,” she said, adding, “It is time to inject a dose of adrenaline into the political bloodstream.”

Many who took to the microphone praised her father Basdeo Panday - who was present at the meeting - as the “best prime minister,” and begged her to start a new political movement.

New National Vision party leader, Fuad Abu Bakr, offered some words of advice, telling her she had to be strong and learn from the mistakes of her parents if she were to start a new political party.

Afterwards, UNC Chaguanas West MP, Ganga Singh, who attended the meeting as a “political observer” said the move was “an act of political entrepreneur.”

“I think that the idea of young people seeking to form a political organisation with a view to eventually enter into the competitive arena in politics is a good thing for the democracy in the society.

“I think there is a lot of hard work ahead if they were to make it a viable political organisation and this is how democracy thrives through political organisations, through the competitive process, clear policy prescription and this is good day for democracy in Trinidad and Tobago,’ he said.

Asked about his presence at the meeting, Singh said, “I have always been a student of political history. What I observe here, clearly there is a disconnect, the views expressed here between the two major political parties and from a UNC perspective, we have to do a lot of work to embrace people from all sectors of Trinidad and Tobago.”

Asked whether he was still a UNC member, he said, “I am.”

Singh said he expected no fallout from the UNC because of his attendance at the meeting.

“No, no, the UNC is a democratic organisation, the fact that I am here as a political observer as I have seen other members of the UNC who are here also. The diversity of thought is very important to the UNC as an organisation.”

Also at the meeting were former NAR and UNC Ministers John Humphrey; Selby Wilson; Adesh Nanan; and Subhas Panday. Former Port of Spain mayor Louis Lee Sing and PNM member Harry Ragoonanan were also there.