By RICHARDSON DHALAI Tuesday, October 27 2009

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Leader and the deputy: Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday listens to deputy political leader of the UNC Kamla Persad-Bissessar during the party's congres...

MAYARO MP Winston “Gypsy” Peters yesterday said he would back Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar to replace Couva North MP Basdeo Panday as political leader of the Opposition United National Congress (UNC).

“This is what I have been saying for the longest while. It is time for Mr Panday to step aside and allow someone else to lead the party. And if the people support Kamla, then I have no problem in supporting her,” Peters said.

“I don’t want Mr Panday to die or fade away into the background. I want him to be around to see the party he built retake government again,” Peters added.

Peters and his RamJackG colleagues, Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj and Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner, were not present at the party’s national congress meeting at Rienzi Complex, when a delegate made the call for Persad-Bissessar to replace Panday.

Peters said one of the reasons he did not attend the meeting was because the congress, he claimed, was based on a “flawed electoral list”.

“I did not want to go and legitimise an illegitimate activity because the electoral list was not a recent list. This was a flawed list and secondly, I did not want to get into any conflict with anyone because everyone knows where I stand in terms of Mr Panday and his leadership,” he said.

Meanwhile, asked to comment on Panday’s warning to UNC members, at the congress meeting, to not allow the party to be the vehicle for those who have made a career of betraying the party, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj yesterday said the only good thing to come from the meeting was that party members’ eyes were finally being opened to the rantings of Panday.

With the national congress ratifying a resolution by the party’s national executive to hold internal elections on January 24, Maharaj said the party was in need of fundamental changes and expressed hope that elections would be held in a democratic and fair manner.

“I am looking forward to the internal elections being conducted in a manner where the membership is treated democratically and fairly,” he added.

Maharaj, together with Warner and Peters have been at loggerheads with the Panday-led national executive following calls by the three parliamentarians for the internal elections to be held before Local Government elections which have been postponed until next July.

The three were recently freed of several charges of misconduct by the party’s disciplinary committee, thus staving off possible sanctions which could have included expulsion.