By SEAN DOUGLAS Tuesday, May 8 2007

“MALE. 63. Married. Looking to make friends” — welcome to Winston Dookeran online. The COP political leader has launched into cyberspace in his latest bid to make friends and influence people.

Dookeran has established a “profile” on “Hi5”, a global networking website patronised by thousands of Trinidad and Tobago nationals.

On his site Dookeran says he’d like to meet “you and young professionals and tertiary students who have an active interest in making our society Trinidad and Tobago a peaceful nation of which we can be proud.”

He has had his site established for a year, but has recently sent out by e-mail invitations to people to join including at least one reporter.

The website also recently came to light in the local media for hosting pictures of pastor’s daughter Danah Alleyene wearing a variety of outfits.

The idea behind Hi5, available at is that one person’s group of friends can network to another’s person’s site of friends so all members of both groups can be in touch with each other.

COP elections and registration secretary, Navi Muraldi, explained to Newsday. “It’s a network, a group of people who share similar concerns.” He said the COP is targeting such Internet users.

He said the aim of the Dookeran site was to inform people about the COP’s message and about the issue of voter registration. “On the site we have information as to why you should vote, plus a list of all the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) offices. We use the existing network to inform users of the network of voter information and voter registration.”

Muradali said that in addition to the Dookeran site, there is also a COP site on Hi5 posted for the past few months, with a COP Youth Congress site to soon follow. “The response has been fantastic, overwhelming, in terms of the number of ‘hits’ or visits to the sites.”

Noting the many Trinidad and Tobago nationals who use Hi5 and the Internet, Muraldi invited persons to send their profiles and their network of friends to join Winston and his friends online. Someone simply has to register at Hi5, and then simply do a search for “Winston Dookeran” or “Congress of the People”, he explained. Dookeran’s Hi5 site includes a link to other websites, including the party’s Hi5 site, and its web-site .

The Dookeran Hi5 site, , under the heading of “lifestyle” includes an extensive education, political and professional biography of Dookeran. Among these achievements, he said he earned an MSC from the London School of Economics in 1969 (education), was elected unopposed as UNC leader in 2005 (political) and served as Central Bank Governor in 1997 to 2002. Interestingly, in the three-page resume, he omits to mention he is political leader of the COP, but only mentions the party afterwards.

The site has one photo of Dookeran and colleagues including Sadiq Baksh, 23 profile comments, some 606 friends, and 30 “fives” friends who have given Dookeran the top-rating score of “five.”