{"id":9258,"date":"2015-11-29T04:02:24","date_gmt":"2015-11-29T08:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=9258"},"modified":"2015-11-29T04:02:24","modified_gmt":"2015-11-29T08:02:24","slug":"unc-wracked-by-internal-strife","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/?p=9258","title":{"rendered":"UNC wracked by internal strife"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Renuka Singh
\nNovember 28, 2015 – guardian.co.tt<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n

United National CongressFresh internal conflict is threatening to break the United National Congress (UNC) apart in the build up to internal elections. With just days to go before the party elects its leader, the mostly clean campaign has suddenly turned nasty as one would-be deputy leader was threatened for taking sides against incumbent Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
\n
\nThe Sunday Guardian has learned that former sport minister Brent Sancho aligned himself with challenger Vasant Bharath\u2019s Team Reconnect and was immediately \u201cthreatened with exposure\u201d by Persad-Bissessar\u2019s team.<\/p>\n

Sancho, the Sunday Guardian is told, quickly withdrew his candidacy bid and has since left the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have been told that he would return after the internal election,\u201d one UNC insider said.<\/p>\n

With the rumour mill in overdrive, no one wanted to officially comment on what Persad-Bissessar\u2019s team was allegedly holding over Sancho\u2019s head.<\/p>\n

Another insider close to Sancho, however, directed the Sunday Guardian to the September 2 issue of The Sunshine newspaper, a weekly publication owned by former government minister Jack Warner. The only story Warner\u2019s publication ran on Sancho that month was his alleged involvement in an adult tape.<\/p>\n

Sancho could not be reached for comment but texted the newspaper that he was \u201cin a meeting\u201d and therefore could not talk.<\/p>\n

A Team Reconnect insider confirmed that Sancho made an application to be on Bharath\u2019s slate in the capacity of deputy political leader. He confirmed also that Sancho left the country and indicated that he would return only after the December 5 election.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Persad-Bissessar denied any involvement in the alleged threat against Sancho.<\/p>\n

\u201cI cannot confirm that. Sancho is the best person to ask about that wouldn\u2019t you say?\u201d Persad-Bissessar said in a telephone interview.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did not even know Sancho was on Vasant\u2019s team. I do not think I have that kind of power that my displeasure could force someone to withdraw from that team,\u201d Persad-Bissessar said.<\/p>\n

With regards to the internal election, Persad-Bissessar said she was \u201cconfident\u201d of a victory because she still maintained a healthy ground support from the UNC.<\/p>\n

Persad-Bissessar admitted that the party was disjointed now in the last days leading up to the election, but she did not feel that that would last long. She is currently campaigning against deputy political leader Dr Roodal Moonilal and former minister Vasant Bharath.<\/p>\n

Persad-Bissessar said in the 2010 internal elections, neither Moonilal nor Bharath campaigned on her slate.<\/p>\n

\u201cVasant even refused to sign the letter to the President to support me for Opposition Leader but after that the party has come together and we won the general election,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes it is a challenge, but I have a solid track record working in my favour, I was challenged before and no challenge is insurmountable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, both challengers, Moonilal and Bharath, have also confirmed that there has been heated infighting.<\/p>\n

Bharath accused Moonilal of \u201cclutching at straws\u201d in an attempt to undermine his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he (Moonilal) sees that he does not have the support he believed he would have and as the party founder said, he is irrelevant,\u201d Bharath said.<\/p>\n

He said Moonilal\u2019s sudden attack on him proved that Moonilal\u2019s own campaign was fragile.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seems to be building his case to return to the Persad-Bissessar camp because I believe he recognises that he cannot win,\u201d Bharath said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe seems to be looking for a home and is trying to engender some sort of sympathy from the Persad-Bissessar camp,\u201d Bharath added.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Moonilal is focused on ramping up his campaign in the last days before the election. He said there have been no threats made against him or his team by anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you have to be very strong to try and threaten me, I am not easily threatened,\u201d Moonilal said. <\/p>\n

Source: www.guardian.co.tt\/news\/2015-11-28\/unc-wracked-internal-strife<\/A><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Renuka Singh November 28, 2015 – guardian.co.tt Fresh internal conflict is threatening to break the United National Congress (UNC) apart in the build up to internal elections. With just days to go before the party elects its leader, the mostly clean campaign has suddenly turned nasty as one would-be deputy leader was threatened for … Continue reading UNC wracked by internal strife<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[310,1,178,566,7,142],"tags":[1098,834,144,1015,759,407],"class_list":["post-9258","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-general-tt","category-general-tt","category-media","category-opposition-party","category-politics","category-unc","tag-brent-sancho","tag-guardian","tag-kamla-persad-bissessar","tag-politics","tag-roodal-moonilal","tag-vasant-bharath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9259,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9258\/revisions\/9259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.trinidadandtobagonews.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}