John out front as UNC supporters weigh future leadership

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

A snap pulse check among sup­port­ers is putting fresh wind be­hind Jear­lean John, with the UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader emerg­ing as the top choice to even­tu­al­ly lead the par­ty.

At the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Re­port to the Na­tion event at the Cou­va South Hall carpark yes­ter­day, 75 at­ten­dees were in­for­mal­ly sur­veyed by Guardian Me­dia on who they want as the par­ty’s next po­lit­i­cal leader.

John se­cured the high­est num­ber of men­tions with 16 en­dorse­ments, out­pac­ing a com­pet­i­tive field of se­nior fig­ures.

Tied for sec­ond were Bar­ry Padarath and Dr Roodal Mooni­lal with 12 each, fol­lowed by Sad­dam Ho­sein on ten. Khadi­jah Ameen picked up eight nods, while Sean Sobers, Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo and Do­minic Smith each re­ceived five. The re­main­ing two votes were split be­tween Nicholas Mor­ris and Dr Michael Dowlath.

De­spite a bleak, rain-soaked af­ter­noon, thou­sands of UNC sup­port­ers from across the coun­try packed in­to the Cou­va South venue, many clutch­ing um­brel­las or hud­dling un­der tents, cre­at­ing a sea of yel­low that re­fused to thin.

As mu­sic blared be­tween speech­es, ven­dors bus­tled along the edges of the carpark, and chants rip­pled through the crowd when­ev­er se­nior fig­ures ap­peared, giv­ing the event the feel of both a ral­ly and a re­union for the par­ty’s base.

Sup­port­ers point­ed to John’s long-stand­ing grass­roots pres­ence as a key fac­tor. Gio­van­ni Bain said, “She was al­ways a work horse and even if you don’t know her per­son­al­ly you sure you’ve heard the name be­fore, es­pe­cial­ly if you liv­ing in the east.”

Mar­sha Grena­do added, “You see Ms Jear­lean John, I love how she does move and speak, she talks sen­si­ble things. Some­times you just like the vibes of some­body.”

Her vis­i­bil­i­ty was al­so on dis­play at yes­ter­day’s event. Short­ly af­ter ar­riv­ing at the Cou­va South venue and ac­knowl­edg­ing sup­port­ers and Cab­i­net col­leagues, John was among the first to join Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in greet­ing par­ty faith­ful.

The show of sup­port comes as Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mains firm­ly at the helm. In Ju­ly last year, she made po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry yet again, se­cur­ing her fourth con­sec­u­tive in­ter­nal lead­er­ship vic­to­ry, this time un­op­posed, since first tak­ing the reins in 2010.

That nom­i­na­tion-on­ly win came just 90 days af­ter she led the UNC to a land­slide win in the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, re­turn­ing the par­ty to gov­ern­ment with a com­mand­ing ma­jor­i­ty.

There is no lead­er­ship con­test on the im­me­di­ate hori­zon with­in the UNC.