Category Archives: UNC

PM: PNM does not wash dirty linen in public

by Michelle Loubon
January 25, 2010 – guardian.co.tt

PM Patrick ManningThe PNM does not wash its dirty linen in public. Prime Minister Patrick Manning made this comment during the party’s 54th anniversary celebrations interfaith thanksgiving rally at Balisier House, Port-of-Spain, yesterday. Its theme was “We’ve come this far by faith.” Although he maintained the PNM did not interfere in the politics of other political parties, Manning boasted that the PNM model was the best with regard to internal organisation and discipline. “We take careful note of what goes on in other political parties…We want to know what not to do,” he said. He then waded into the practice of washing dirty linen in public. “If you find dirty linen being washed in public, it has to do with the method of selection,” Manning said.
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Kamla is new UNC boss

Kamla Persad-Bissessar is new UNC Political leader
Kamla Persad-Bissessar is new UNC Political leader

KAMLA IS UNC BOSS newsday.co.tt
Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar last night won by a landslide to be elected the new UNC political leader, while Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner is the party’s new chairman, displacing Basdeo Panday, who founded the party 20 years ago. Panday was the party’s leader and chairman.

Kamla crushes Bas guardian.co.tt
Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar has put a sound licking on her two rivals to become the new leader of the United National Congress (UNC). In the process, she became the first woman to become the leader of a major political party in Trinidad and Tobago. Although results were trickling in at UNC headquarters at Rienzi Complex, Couva, Persad-Bissessar was clear in the lead in most of the 28 polling stations. Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner was also heading for a landslide victory against St Augustine MP Vasant Bharath.
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Kamla is new UNC Political leader

Kamla is new UNC Political leader trinidadexpress.com
Kamla Persad-BissessarJoining Persad-Bissessar in the leadership rung is Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner who has won the chairmanship, also by a landslide. The triumph of Warner, who was essentially on his own, attests to his personal strength within the party.

Ready to work with opponents
Excoriated as a weakling incapable of leading and hiding a drinking weakness, Kamla Persad-Bissessar proved last night she had the political strength to beat two political legends.
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COP In Win-Win Post UNC Elections Scenarios

By Stephen Kangal
January 22, 2010

Congress of The PeopleContrary to the uninformed view of Selwyn Ryan that victory for the Hon. Kamla P. Bissessar in the UNC internal elections will result in the political demise of Winston Dookeran and the COP I believe that based on all the post-elections scenarios the COP will derive political capital and find itself in a win-win situation. The COP is the common denominator in all post-elections scenarios and will emerge as the principal beneficiary post January 24 UNC elections.
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Political Accommodation and UNC Leadership Race

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Stephen Kangal
January 18, 2010

It appears to me that the most critically dominant and indeed the determining factor that will influence the outcome of the UNC’s January 24 internal elections would appear to and should be:

which one of the three candidates vying for the UNC leadership presents the brightest and most convincing prospects for forging sustainable and credible unity/accommodation with the COP at the next general elections?
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Frontier Theory in UNC-COP Relations

By Stephen Kangal
January 13, 2010
Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Kamla Persad-BissessarIt must be made patently clear that the COP is predominantly, but not exclusively, a political derivative of the UNC resulting from the conflict of the contending forces of disintegration/one-manship that is in the DNA of the latter. Accordingly, since the inception of the COP at the Center of Excellence on 10 September 2006, there has not yet emerged or negotiated and/or developed a clear and defining boundary or demarcation line that separates the two political organizations. There is a huge zone of overlapping loyalties. Those lines of demarcation at the individual popular membership level can be considered to be more imaginary than real.
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UNC Blanks 16,000 Members

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Invera Arjoon
January 07, 2010 – newsday.co.tt

THE applications of 16,000 persons for membership to the United National Congress (UNC) will not be approved in time for the January 24 internal elections of the party, chairman of the party’s Membership Committee Kelvin Ramnath said yesterday.
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Firestorm is a-coming

By Raffique Shah
January 03, 2010
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

ProtestShould political turmoil erupt in 2010, it wouldn’t be because of the Property Tax or government’s now toned-down spending spree. The opposition, united or divided, cannot trigger mass action, the kind we experienced in 1970. If anything, it’s the extreme insensitivity of uncaring ministers-Peter Taylor’s ‘living off the fat of the land’, Gaynor Dick-Forde’s ‘only 12 people against the tax’, Neil Parsanlal’s Goebbels-like, weekly media-bashing-that would send angry masses streaming onto the streets.
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Backing Bas …or Ramesh

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Raffique Shah
December 20, 2009
trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

As a Christmas gift to my colleague of many, many moons ago, I am backing Basdeo Panday for leadership of the UNC in the upcoming party elections. I have taken this decision, not after long and hard examination of the issues at stake, or any analysis of the future of UNC, but purely because Bas is a man. And this country of warped minds where people are whimsical in their outlooks, man must back man.
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Making the right choice for party and country

Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj
Basdeo Panday, Kamla Persad-Bissessar & Ramesh Maharaj

By Tony Fraser
December 16, 2009

Ramesh Maharaj is correct in saying that the outcome of the January internal elections of the United National Congress (UNC) will determine the future political prospects of the party. Indeed, to take that projection further along the road of rep-resentative politics, the out come will also determine the short-term political landscape of T&T. It is clear that if the UNC membership returns Basdeo Panday as its political leader, the party will be doomed to opposition. Moreover the UNC, as now configured, is sure to receive an ever-declining share of the number of votes and seats in the local and general elections up ahead.
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