Trinidad: No division in Opposition party—Haynes

(Trinidad Guardian) The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress has moved on from the Gan­ga Singh is­sue and there is no di­vi­sion in the par­ty.

“There is no split com­ing out of that. We are fo­cused on re­turn­ing good gov­er­nance to Trinidad and To­ba­go and we can­not be dis­tract­ed by things so eas­i­ly so we re­mained fo­cused,” said UNC Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Ani­ta Haynes.

 
Haynes made the com­ment yes­ter­day as the par­ty held its con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

The UNC PRO was act­ing as an ob­serv­er at the El Do­ra­do North Hin­du school.

Po­si­tions were chal­lenged across 10 con­stituen­cies in the elec­tion. Haynes said it was sim­ply the UNC get­ting its busi­ness in or­der as the par­ty con­tin­ues to pre­pare for up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions and next year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“This is re­al­ly the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress mak­ing sure all of our UNC busi­ness is in or­der in terms of con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive. Lat­er, well in Ju­ly, we will have the elec­tions for our women’s arm and our youth and we are just tak­ing care of UNC busi­ness for right now,” said Haynes, “Prepa­ra­tions for the lo­cal gov­ern­ment and the gen­er­al elec­tions are on­go­ing. We will al­so be hav­ing our bud­get con­sul­ta­tions and cot­tage meet­ings so the par­ty is very vi­brant at this time. This is just UNC busi­ness to have our ducks in a row. “

The Ch­agua­nas West MP caused a stir when he went against the par­ty’s stance and vot­ed with Gov­ern­ment on four claus­es in the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions bill for en­hanced pen­sions for leg­is­la­tors, the prime min­is­ter, the pres­i­dent, and judges.

The Ch­agua­nas West MP lat­er de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion stat­ing he stood on prin­ci­ple as the par­ty had pre­vi­ous­ly lob­bied for those changes.

Singh, how­ev­er, vot­ed with his col­leagues against all oth­er claus­es of the bill, in­clud­ing the pro­posed changes to the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act.

His ac­tions prompt­ed some peo­ple to call for him to dis­ci­plined by the par­ty.

Haynes said while Singh’s ac­tions were dis­ap­point­ing, the par­ty had a dif­fer­ent fo­cus at this time.

“It’s al­ways dis­ap­point­ing when some­one choos­es to air their opin­ion in that man­ner, as op­posed to dis­cussing it in a cau­cus and then go­ing for­ward with our col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. All of this is par for the course at this point in time. The UNC re­mains vi­brant and ready for elec­tions,” said Haynes, “We had an in­ci­dent with the MP and we moved on from that.”

An­oth­er op­po­si­tion MP Dr. Fuad Khan, lat­er said he backed Gan­ga Singh’s de­ci­sion on the vote.

Khan was ab­sent when the vote took place and ad­mit­ted he left the Par­lia­ment be­fore be­cause he did not want to sub­ject him­self to the vote as he agreed with pro­vi­sions for leg­is­la­tors and judges. He said he did not know what he would have done if present for the di­vi­sion.

De­spite these as­ser­tions from two UNC MPs, Haynes said it was busi­ness as usu­al for the par­ty.