(Trinidad Express) Former Government Minister Vasant Bharath has issued a warning to the People’s National Movement (PNM) that under his leadership the United National Congress (UNC) will return to Government.
The next general elections are in 2025.
Bharath officially declared that he will be battling UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for the party’s leadership in the December 6, 2020 internal election.
He criticised Persad-Bissessar saying she led the UNC into 11 election defeats and the membership is crying out for change.
Bharath also knocked Persad-Bissessar’s representation as the member of Parliament for Siparia saying he had to leave his house and seek help, through the regional corporation, for a woman in Penal Rock road named Cynthia whose home was being damaged by a river.
“I also sound a warning and put the PNM on notice. We in the UNC might be wounded, we may seem leaderless and in disarray but, be warned, we in the UNC are a proud and resilient people,” said Bharath at a news conference at Cyrus street, El Socorro.
UNC members Ramona Ramdial and Larry Lalla were in attendance.
“To those in the PNM rejoicing in our pain, rest assured, that when we put our house in order, when the sun begins to rise in all of its glory, victory will be ours and the United National Congress will once again take its rightful place as the next Government of Trinidad and Tobago,” said Bharath.
He said the UNC presently is in “rapid decline” and in “total disarray” because of poor leadership.
He said the UNC electoral losses have been a “nightmare” as he lamented that despite the PNM being unpopular and not having any achievements, the UNC still lost the August 10, 2020 general elections.
“We somehow miraculously contrived to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I share in your disbelief that our party lost yet another election, against, what is perhaps the most unpopular, despised, and ridiculed government in the history of our nation,” he said.
He criticised Persad-Bissessar’s choice of candidates for the general election and the side lining of persons such as Ramdial, Lalla, Kevin Ramnarine, Fazal Karim, Bhoendradatt Tewarie and others including defeated election candidates Sean Sobers and Tahaqa Obika.
He added that Mickela Panday daughter of the UNC’s founding father Basdeo Panday had to form her own party after finding no place in the UNC.