PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC):
TRINIDAD AND Tobago's Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has started a series of unity meetings with members of the fractured national executive of the United National Congress (UNC) in an attempt to unite the party.
Persad-Bissessar, a former Attorney-General, will hold talks with beleaguered UNC political leader Winston Dookeran, who was bypassed for the Opposition Leader post because he did not command the support necessary from the MPs and the national executive.
She confirmed that unity meetings started even before her appointment was made official and she had already held discussions with several MPs, including so-called Independent UNC MPs Gillian Lucky and Fuad Khan as well as former UNC MP Gerald Yetming.
She, however, added that she was unable to contact Opposition Chief Whip Ganga Singh and Chaguanas MP Manohar Ramsaran.
All have refused to give their support to Persad-Bissessar and have publicly voiced their concerns about her appointment.
"Our focus, our aim, our goal is one and the same and that is that we must remove the PNM," Persad-Bissessar told the media, adding, "I am willing to work and further the vision of the UNC and the mission of the UNC," she said.
She said she was "humbled" by the support she received and was "extending her hand to all, including those who supported me and those who did not".
THE AIM NOW
She added that the aim now was to ensure that former Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday received justice and said she was disturbed that he remained in jail without bail.
Persad-Bissessar denied that she was a 'caretaker' Opposition Leader, but admitted she would "readily and easily" return the position to Panday, if future circumstances allowed him to serve.
But she made it clear that outside of Panday she was eminently suitable to hold the reins of Opposition Leader.
