UNC demands Roberts’ resignation following defection to PNM

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

There are fresh calls for changes to the laws gov­ern­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, as the de­fec­tion of for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) al­der­man Vic­tor Roberts to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­tin­ues to cre­ate fric­tion with­in the Siparia Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion (SBC) led by May­or Dood­nath Mayrhoo.

And Mayrhoo yes­ter­day warned PNM leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les that Roberts will even­tu­al­ly be­tray her too.

Dur­ing the PNM An­nu­al Sports and Fam­i­ly Day on Sun­day, Roberts boast­ed that he was now ful­ly with the par­ty and re­it­er­at­ed that there is no need for him to step down as an al­der­man in the SBC, al­though he was put there as a UNC mem­ber.

Yes­ter­day, Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen told Guardian Me­dia, “If he (Roberts) has any ounce of in­tegri­ty he will re­sign. And as Mrs (Pen­ne­lope) Beck­les wel­comes him in­to her par­ty, it is her du­ty to en­sure that he does. So, the ball is in her court.”

Mayhroo echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments dur­ing a me­dia con­fer­ence at his of­fice. He claimed Roberts had “hi­jacked” the cor­po­ra­tion, as the PNM now con­trols the ma­jor­i­ty of votes with­in the ex­ec­u­tive.

“Like they have done the week be­fore, where they in­di­cat­ed that they are not sup­port­ing the J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tion and the cul­tur­al ex­trav­a­gan­za, where we gave a free show to the peo­ple of Siparia to end off Bor­ough cel­e­bra­tion, Vic­tor Roberts would have played an in­te­gral part in that by sup­port­ing the PNM on that.”

Just like coun­cil­lors, al­der­men are gov­erned by the Mu­nic­i­pal Cor­po­ra­tions Act. The statu­to­ry grounds for an al­der­man va­cat­ing their seat (Sec­tion 27) are iden­ti­cal to those for a coun­cil­lor: death, writ­ten res­ig­na­tion, pro­longed un­ex­cused ab­sence, bank­rupt­cy, or crim­i­nal con­vic­tion.

How­ev­er, be­cause the act lacks an an­ti-de­fec­tion clause for lo­cal gov­ern­ment, an al­der­man who de­fects, be­comes in­de­pen­dent, or votes against their par­ty’s di­rec­tives can re­tain their seat for the coun­cil’s full term.

This is dif­fer­ent to the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) Act, 1978, which gov­erns the con­duct of Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. Sec­tion 49A(1) states that a mem­ber of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives must va­cate their seat if they were elect­ed as a can­di­date of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty and lat­er re­sign from that par­ty or are ex­pelled by the par­ty’s prop­er au­thor­i­ty.

Mayrhoo yes­ter­day told Guardian Me­dia he has al­ready spo­ken to the Prime Min­is­ter about chang­ing the law.

“Where­by an al­der­man could be ap­point­ed and re­moved along the same lines as a sen­a­tor, you ap­point a sen­a­tor to­day and he can be re­moved any time, the same should ap­ply to an al­der­man when he is ap­point­ed. The par­ty must have what it takes and the law to make sure that they can re­move him at any time, whether he choos­es to mis­be­have or go across to an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Ameen if she too want­ed a change to the law, but she would on­ly say that PNM mem­bers have al­so asked for it to be amend­ed.

The UNC would have held an 8-5 ma­jor­i­ty in the Siparia cor­po­ra­tion fol­low­ing the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, with its eight mem­bers com­pris­ing six coun­cil­lors and two al­der­men. The PNM’s five mem­bers con­sist­ed of three coun­cil­lors and two al­der­men. How­ev­er, the bal­ance of pow­er be­gan shift­ing in Au­gust 2024 when Siparia West/Fyz­abad coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali de­fect­ed to the PNM. The sit­u­a­tion changed fur­ther in 2025 fol­low­ing the mur­der of UNC’s Siparia/San Fran­cique coun­cil­lor Ra­mona Vic­tor. Roberts lat­er al­so broke ranks with the UNC to align him­self with the PNM ahead of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, ef­fec­tive­ly turn­ing the UNC’s for­mer 8-5 ad­van­tage in­to a 7-5 edge for the PNM.

Roberts, once a staunch sup­port­er of Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has claimed that she was sur­round­ing her­self with “yes men.”

But the Siparia may­or warned Beck­les that Roberts could turn on her too.

“To­day he is your friend, to­mor­row he is your en­e­my.”

Mayrhoo said when the next lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion comes next year, he has no fear that Roberts can do any re­al dam­age to the UNC.

“Vic­tor Roberts brings noth­ing to the cor­po­ra­tion and he brings noth­ing.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Shane Mo­hammed was adamant that Roberts should re­sign or laws should be en­act­ed to en­sure that po­lit­i­cal par­ties have greater say in re­move lo­cal gov­ern­ment per­son­nel.

“It ought to be amend­ed be­cause you have been ap­point­ed an al­der­man by virtue of you align­ing your­self to the po­lit­i­cal par­ty pri­or to a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion. And there­fore, by virtue of your name get­ting on the list of al­der­men to be sub­mit­ted to the EBC, it was be­cause of your mem­ber­ship and align­ment to whichev­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

He added, “We could sim­ply ap­ply the cross­ing of the floor act to ap­ply to those in the lo­cal gov­ern­ment sec­tor. Or you can amend the act to al­so in­clude a clause that is sim­i­lar to the cross­ing of the floor act that cur­rent­ly ex­ists and has been es­tab­lished. That’s not hard.”