By CLINT CHAN TACK Wednesday, November 4 2009

ONE HOUR after holding crime and constitutional reform talks yesterday with Prime Minister Patrick Manning, at the Diplomatic Centre in St Ann’s, Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday declared that Congress of the People (COP) leader Winston Dookeran was unfit to lead the country, in any capacity.

Addressing a news conference at his Charles Street, Port-of-Spain office, Panday slammed Dookeran for claiming yesterday’s meeting was a political accommodation between Manning and himself. “I don’t think these people understand the Constitution,” he stated. Panday explained that under the Westminster system of governance, the opposition leader always responds to requests by the prime minister to discuss issues of national importance. “I have a duty to respond. I shall do my duty!” he declared.

Disclosing that he proposed the establishment of a national crime task force to Manning and this would include representatives of all political parties, Panday said he would not be asking Dookeran to join this group. He said Dookeran ignored all of his calls to join the UNC on a national platform on crime and constitutional reform. “These people are not fit to lead,” Panday quipped. Asked if the RamjackG faction of the UNC would use yesterday’s meeting with Manning against him, Panday replied: “I know my enemies are going to say all kinds of foolishness.

You notice that we no longer deal with such peripheral and irrelevant matters. This country has too many problems.”

Insisting there is no longer any dissent in the UNC’s ranks, Panday said: “It does not have to be love, it does not have to be hate. It does not have to be compassion. No kind of emotion is involved. All that is important to me is that I do my duty.”

With the UNC scheduled to hold internal executive elections on January 24, 2010, Panday was optimistic that the party would continue initiatives he set in train from yesterday regardless of who forms its new national executive.

“I don’t think that any parliamentarian who wishes to be re-elected will go against the wishes of the rank and file of the party,” he said. Asked if Maharaj, Warner and Peters would be part of any UNC team for future talks with the Government, Panday quipped: “I said a team.” Contacted yesterday, Maharaj said he was in the middle of an important court matter and would reserve comment on Panday’s statements for a later date.