Rambachan: Moonilal is UNC leader-in-waiting

FORMER Tabaquite MP Dr Surujrattan Rambachan has endorsed Dr Roodal Moonilal as the next leader of the United National Congress (UNC) and prime minister-in-waiting.

Rambachan gave his endorsement at a virtual cottage meeting in support of Moonilal in the Oropouche East constituency on Friday night.
Other speakers included Barry Padarath and Subhas Panday, two former Princes Town MPs.
“Rudy, you have been given the name Lion of Oropouche,” said Rambachan. “You are more than a lion. When you roar in the Parliament, the People’s National Movement (PNM) get very ruffled in their seats.

“Rudy is always under their skin,” he told his hearers, “the kind of person you require in Parliament when you have to face those members of the PNM, especially those who have caustic mouths like (Fitzgerald) Hinds.

Addressing Moonilal again, he said, “You are a young man, a man of great courage and determination. You also have vision for self and this community. I know you have a vision for TT and wider Caribbean.

“I hope that I will be alive the day when you become the leader of the UNC and have yourself set up to be the prime minister of this country.”
He told Moonilal he deserves the position of leadership.

However, he said his endorsement does not take way anything from the current UNC leader.
“Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Basdeo Panday were two of the best prime ministers that ever served this country, because they both had in their hearts compassion for this country. They simply wanted to see a better quality of life at any cost for the people of TT. “

Persad-Bissessar many years ago also endorsed Moonilal as her “heir apparent.”
Rambachan took aim at his former colleague Winston “Gypsy” Peters, who is now the PNM candidate in the Moruga/Tableland seat, saying one cannot trust a man like that who jumped ship just for personal power.

He said the PNM was very subtly on its platforms making the argument that UNC is an ethnic-based party: “an East Indian party, and not a reflection of the national community.
“I want to categorically say that is a baseless, foolish argument and one used openly to deny the fact that the UNC is a national political organisation.”