After serving less than six months at the helm of the Independent Liberal Party (ILP), Lyndira Oudit stunned many when she resigned from the position on Sunday. But the former senate Vice-President says her resignation had been in the making for some time, admitting she was never fully accepted as leader of the ILP. Yesterday Oudit, in a phone interview with the T&T Guardian, said she felt her leadership was a showpiece, since party founder and chairman, Chaguanas West MP Jack Warner, made the decisions even though she was nominally the leader. She admitted: “The party always has, had or seen Mr Warner as being the leader. It was his party from April, May, June, July last year to the present time. So you cannot separate the party from Jack Warner and vice versa.”
Oudit, who was named ILP leader in June after being nominated uncontested ahead of the party’s internal elections, announced her resignation with immediate effect on Sunday at a special emergency meeting of the party’s national executive. Warner was returned to his original position as leader, while attorney Rekha Ramjit has now replaced him as chairman. Oudit, who did not give a full explanation for her departure from the leadership of the party, also said there were “some tensions, there were some divisions within the executive.” She conceded that with all organisations, such divisions were not unnatural but added: “It came back to the positioning of a political leader. “A party has to support a political leader and if there is acceptance and recognition that the founder of the party, or the chairman of the party, fully supports the political leader, then you find everything else will run smoothly.”
Oudit said she believed that in the beginning, when she took over the party leadership, “there was a sincere effort by Mr Warner to really allow for some letting go.” But there was no complete transition. “Now,” she said, “I think Mr Warner is a very dynamic and competent individual and he is going to do what he does best.” Oudit explained that when she was presented with the nomination for political leader in May, she felt it was premature for the party to make such a change. She said she felt the only way that leadership change could have been fully accepted would have been for “Warner and the entire executive to literally support any person holding the position of political leader.” “But as it turned out,” she explained, “I felt that not enough was actually done to make the change easier to accept. “There were some who continued to see the party as Jack Warner and some of the decisions, I felt, were not in keeping with the fact that there was a new political leader.”
For the party to go forward that there must not be any confusion for the membership, she stressed. “There must be a single cohesive force and if Mr Warner is at the helm, he will put the party on the footing that he needs to have it, where he needs to put the party,” she added.
No decision on political future
Oudit said she would be taking some time for personal reflection on her political future. She denied she had been in discussions either to return to the United National Congress (UNC) or join the Congress of the People (COP) or People’s National Movement (PNM). “I have had absolutely no conversation with any other political party. “I intend to think very carefully. I intend to look at what is happening and really take an observer position, really,” she said.
Oudit said she would not make any hasty decisions whatsoever. “It must be something that has a strong benefit, that you must be able to contribute properly,” she said. She denied her departure from the ILP leadership was an indication that the party was dying or irrelevant to the political landscape. “I think the ILP does have a place. I think that all the polls show there are undecided voters out there that are looking for something different. The undecided voter is really, in my mind, who the ILP should be targeting.” Calls to Warner’s cellphone went unanswered yesterday.
Ragoonath: ILP needs Warner as head
Political analyst Dr Bishnu Ragoonath says Warner’s return as leader of the ILP is key to the party’s survival. He made the statement yesterday as he commented on Oudit’s resignation as party leader. Warner’s return was the only move that could help the ILP, he argued. “I have always felt that the ILP was Jack Warner and Jack Warner is the ILP and to that extent, Jack Warner taking back the ILP leadership is simply ensuring the ILP survives until the next election, because I think the ILP, under any other leader, would seem to be weak and ineffective.”
Ragoonath admitted, however he was not sure Warner’s taking back the leadership of the ILP would strengthen the party. “But it will give back the party that face it had when it started,” he added.
Ragoonath said more resignations from the ILP would only serve to break it down further and Warner would be put to the test to revitalise it. “I think the party is on the decline and more resignations like this would serve to further undermine the confidence anyone would have in the party. “Be that as it may, Jack Warner has always been the driving force behind the ILP and it is up to him. We now have to look at his capacity and his capabilities to bring back the ILP to some sort of glory, if that is at all possible,” he added.
He felt the ILP must now look towards forming an alliance to continue its existence. “I do not think the ILP can survive on its own at this time. I think the ILP has become another COP, which is just a shadow of the original party that it started off with. “The party is Jack Warner and Jack Warner is the party... then without a Jack Warner there is no foundation,” he added. Ragoonath said last April when the ILP was formed Warner had momentum but that had been lost. “He has to join forces. I would not go so far as to say he cannot win a seat but at this point in time the politics do not seem to be in his favour,” Ragoonath added.
