VZCZCXYZ0000
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHSP #0806/01 1871139
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
R 061139Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY PORT OF SPAIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7070
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L PORT OF SPAIN 000806 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 06/30/2016 
TAGS: KDEM PGOV TD
SUBJECT: UNC EXECUTIVE/DOOKERAN DIVORCE ALMOST FINAL 
 
REF: A. PORT OF SPAIN 00523 
 
     ¶B. PORT OF SPAIN 00405 
     ¶C. PORT OF SPAIN 00505 
     ¶D. PORT OF SPAIN 00676 
     ¶E. PORT OF SPAIN 00783 
 
Classified By: DCM, Eugene P.  Sweeney for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d) 
 
¶1.  (U) SUMMARY: On June 28, the UNC Executive passed a 
motion of no confidence in UNC Political Leader Winston 
Dookeran and dismissed three of his leading supporters. 
Dookeran was unmoved, as he continued his campaign trek 
around the country in an effort to rally UNC and broader 
voter support in his battle for control of the UNC and in his 
ultimate bid to topple the ruling PNM government at the next 
election.  The &no confidence8 motion is expected to lead, 
over the next six weeks, to a final decision by the UNC 
general membership on Dookeran,s status and thereby on the 
overall fate of the party.  In the meantime, Prime Minister 
Manning ponders when precisely to call the next election, 
based on the likely strength or weakness of his opposition, 
on the government,s progress in the fight against crime, on 
poll results and on the general mood of the nation.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
¶2.  (U) At its regularly scheduled weekly meeting on June 28, 
the Executive council of the Opposition United National 
Congress (UNC) passed a motion of no confidence in Winston 
Dookeran, the party,s political leader whom it had elected 
to that position.  Without explanation, the Executive also 
dismissed from their duties UNC senators Carolyn Seepersad 
Bachan and Sadiq Baksh and Executive member Carol 
Cuffie-Dowlat all of whom had been supportive of Dookeran. 
At the time of the UNC Executive meeting, Dookeran was 
addressing his own followers at one of the many meetings he 
has been conducting around the country.  In an immediate 
response to the UNC Executive,s motion of no confidence in 
him, Dookeran told the crowd that the UNC Executive had 
itself lost the confidence of the UNC membership, long long 
ago. 
 
----------------------------- 
UNC DISINTEGRATION SUMMARIZED 
----------------------------- 
 
¶3.  (U) To anyone watching the growing disarray within the 
top hierarchy of the UNC, this critical chapter in the 
unfolding struggle for control of the party between its 
entrenched leadership and the Dookeran faction was no 
surprise.  Relations between Dookeran and what he dubs &the 
cabal8 on the UNC Executive council have been on a down hill 
slide since October 2005.  At that time, the iconic Basdeo 
Panday anointed Dookeran as UNC political leader while 
simultaneously diluting his authority by retaining for 
himself the posts of party chairman and, more significantly, 
parliamentary opposition leader. 
 
¶4.  (U) As long as Panday had his hands on the reigns of the 
UNC, the professorial and charismatically challenged Dookeran 
did nothing more threatening than use his trademark 
non-confrontational style to advocate for a &new politics8. 
 Addressing not only the UNC membership but the wider 
electorate, he called for a national, detribalized consensus 
and for a political culture diametrically opposed to the 
traditional &I win, you lose8 brand of T&T,s power 
politics.  Even though Dookeran loyalists Robin Montano, Roy 
Augustus and Gerald Yetming had been summarily fired or had 
removed themselves from the UNC leadership, Dookeran himself 
was still willing to appear publicly as an integral member of 
the UNC leadership, as recently as February 19 when 
controversial, former UNC Attorney General Ramesh Lawrence 
Maharaj was first re-accepted into the UNC fold. 
 
¶5.  (U) However, once Panday was convicted on April 24 of 
failing to declare a London bank account, relieved of his 
party chairmanship and replaced as opposition leader by Kamla 
Persad-Bissessar, Dookeran was much more willing to take the 
gloves off and engage in some disingenuous posturing of his 
own.  For the past two months, Persad-Bissessar repeatedly 
expressed her desire to meet with Dookeran and mend fences 
with him, but never quite managed to do so.  Dookeran, on the 
other hand, while also calling for party unity, seemed to go 
out of his way to deepen the gulf between him and &the 
cabal8 by, among other actions, scheduling his campaign 
appearances to conflict with the weekly meetings of the 
Executive of which he is a member.  In a June 12 letter to 
the Executive, Dookeran blasted &the cabal8 for not 
consulting with him on important decisions, including the 
election of an opposition leader to replace Panday as well as 
the suspension and expulsion respectively of Gary Griffith 
and Manohar Ramsaran, both of them supportive of him.  For 
their part, Persad-Bissessar and her allies in the leadership 
attacked Dookeran for attempting to establish within the UNC 
a ¶llel organization8. 
 
------------------------------- 
WHERE DOES THE UNC GO FROM HERE 
------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (U) The UNC Executive,s &no-confidence8 motion has 
left Dookeran unmoved.  He clearly believes, based on the 
large crowds which reportedly attend his meetings on the 
campaign trail, that he is the only UNC leader credibly able 
to lead a united UNC into power at the next election.  In 
fact, according to Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Dookeran has urged 
her to abandon her ties to &the cabal8 and join his camp, 
an offer she says she declined.  If true, this was a bold 
move on Dookeran,s part, demonstrating that he may have not 
only seminar-leading abilities but political hand-to-hand 
combat skills too. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) Some Dookeran supporters claim the UNC Executive,s 
&no-confidence8 motion contravened the UNC party 
constitution and should be answered legally.  Others, such as 
Gerald Yetming who now chairs an embryonic coalition of small 
&third force8 parties known as the Democratic National 
Alliance (DNA), have called on Dookeran to leave the UNC and 
establish his own independent presence in the electoral 
arena.  In fact, Yetming would ideally like to see Dookeran 
as the DNA,s standard-bearer in the next election campaign. 
Without Dookeran, the DNA is nothing more than &Dookeran 
light8; with him, the DNA may grow into a force to be 
reckoned with, although it has already lost one of its 
component groupings due to internal disagreements. 
 
¶8.  (U) By all accounts, the UNC Executive,s 
&no-confidence8 motion was only the penultimate chapter in 
this battle for the soul and control of the UNC.  Both 
factions are now waiting for the final chapter, the verdict 
of the UNC general membership.  They will not have to wait 
long: between July 16 and August 13, the youth wing of the 
party, the women,s wing of the party and the party,s 
national assembly are scheduled to convene, at which time 
they will all be asked to express their loyalties, and then 
maybe, just maybe, the fate of the UNC will finally be 
settled. 
 
¶9.  (C) COMMENT: The choice for UNC grassroots voters may be 
painful, but the differences between the Dookeran camp and 
&the cabal8 are clear.  Dookeran, the academic and former 
central bank governor, is widely regarded as clean-cut and 
likeable even by many less ideologically committed supporters 
of the People,s National Movement (PNM), let alone by the 
historically unaffiliated voters who are disgusted with 
traditional T&T politics and wonder why Dookeran did not 
leave the UNC a long time ago.  On the other hand, many in 
&the cabal8 are weighed down by heavy baggage.  In T&T,s 
racially divided politics, they may still be able to 
galvanize their hard-core Indo-Trinidadian base, but Basedo 
Panday is legally besieged; Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj (&the 
great betrayer8, as Robin Montano loves to call him) is 
suspect; and Jack Warner, the &sugar daddy8 of T&T soccer, 
who eagerly bathes in the glow of the nation,s World Cup 
heroes, is known to move his political loyalties as readily 
as pawns on a chess board and has been portrayed in a recent 
BBC investigative documentary as a totally corrupt sports 
marketing tycoon.  If Dookeran does in fact succeed in 
drawing the relatively unsullied Kamla Persad-Bissessar away 
from this unprincipled trio, it may just turn out to be the 
coup de grace for the UNC.  This is not a far-fetched notion: 
after all, just as Panday chose Persad-Bissessar for his 
successor he can just as easily unchoose her, and, in any 
case, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj seems to be eyeing the position 
of Opposition Leader for himself. 
 
¶10.  (C) COMMENT CONTINUED:  In the interim, Prime Minister 
Patrick Manning bides his time, watching the ruling PNM,s 
opposition disintegrate, into how many pieces nobody knows. 
It is Manning who will decide when before the end of 2007 to 
call the next general election.  The state of the UNC will be 
just one factor influencing his decision.  Other factors will 
be the progress made by the government in combating crime, 
whatever conclusions may be drawn from a variety of 
pre-election polls, and the overall mood of this sports-crazy 
country, in the wake of the Soccer World Cup and in the lead 
up to, and following, next year,s Cricket World Cup. END 
COMMENT 
SWEENEY