Rambally: UNC not winning under Kamla

CHAGUANAS West MP Dinesh Rambally has said the UNC cannot win office under leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, in a statement titled UNC at 35.

He claimed the party's present leadership "cannot win, and does not care."

Rambally recalled the ULF being formed when DLP leader Dr Rudranath Capildeo could not win elections, then the UNC being formed by a breakaway group from the NAR coalition government, and then the COP being formed by a breakaway from the UNC, whose leader Basdeo Panday refused to give way to a leader with popular support (Winston Dookeran).

"It was only after another three years of pain, kidnapping, unparalleled crime and corruption, that the UNC membership grudgingly let go of Mr Panday, after Mrs Persad-Bissessar sold the fact that Panday was on a losing streak, having lost two elections under his leadership, with no viable prospect of success.

"The same is true for her today, except her losing streak has gone beyond two general elections."

He recalled the PNM winning against the divided Panday-led UNC and Dookeran-led Congress of the People in the 2007 general election, but the Persad-Bissessar-led coalition, the People's Partnership, winning in 2010, but not in 2015.

"Since the defeat in 2015, the UNC membership has been waiting for and wanting a revamping, reorganisation and revitalisation so that the UNC party can find its way back into governance." Saying, "The PNM is killing us (and) the UNC leadership is too busy killing itself to care," he urged the UNC to be truthful in its own introspective analysis.

"A few weeks ago I publicly voiced my greatest fear as a UNC lifetime member and MP: The inability of the UNC party to win the next general elections under the leadership of Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar."

He alleged she was "leading us like lambs to slaughter."

Rambally said over recent years the consequence of the UNC being viewed as unable to win has been to let the PNM be in power by default.

"The main contributor to this is UNC leaders being unwilling to give up power, preferring to 'mash up the party' when their time is up.

"The UNC’s internal chaos and some of the membership's tolerance of it allow the PNM to win with an illusion of competence and unity."

Rambally said on the UNC's 35th anniversary, members must recall that it was healthy dissent that led to the UNC being able to defeat the PNM one on one.

"However, it is that old, unhealthy lust for power and bacchanal that has caused it to be cast back into opposition time and again. Let us also remember that leaders, no matter how great and good, come and go, but the party remains."

He said when history gets tired of repeating itself, it erases.

"If we sustain one more loss, and lose more seats, the UNC will go the way of the DLP, ULF, and even the NAR."

What would remain would be the PNM – a party incapable of governance, but which can win against an indisciplined opposition leadership who refuses to understand the realities that they face.

"The UNC holds the future in its members' hands. I pray they do not wash their hands of the future to keep the current leadership, which has proven it cannot win, and does not care."