Standard Bearer Says Progress Made in P.U.P. G11 Dispute
Kareem Musa
A group of eleven standard bearers of the People’s United Party continues to boycott official Party functions. They are agitating for change in the P.U.P., and until some common ground is found, the informally dubbed G-eleven has apparently decided to keep its distance from the National Executive. With elections likely sooner rather than later, that’s not good news for the Party which desperately needs to regain some election credibility. Today, P.U.P. Standard Bearer Kareem Musa, a member of a committee set up to negotiate with the G-eleven, told us that some progress has been made.
Kareem Musa, P.U.P. Standard Bearer, Caribbean Shores
“Absolutely! That is something we have to take seriously. That’s eleven of the candidates that have concerns and we are a Party that’s democratic. We want to listen to those concerns, we want to address those concerns and we want to be able to reach some middle ground because all of those candidates are valuable members of our Party. They are all talented, qualified individuals. They have their own way of thinking and we have to respect that. We have to respect that and in terms of strategy we have to be able to find some middle ground as to what their demands are and what our demands are and we have to be able to reason with each other and we’re in the process of that and I do believe we’re making some progress.”
Reporter
“One of the deal breakers as we understand it has been the call for a national convention…not only a national convention but a contested national convention at which leadership can be contested. Has there been any common ground reached on that particular issue?”
Kareem Musa
“That particular issue we discussed the pros and cons of it as a political party and as a political expert yourself Mike you would understand that it all involves strategy, and right now as you said we are in the midst of a general election so it would make no sense at all to go into a divisive national convention at this point which is contested so that Mr. Barrow can right away call a general election. That makes no sense at all. So in my opinion at least, we are willing to have a national convention, just not a contested one at this time.”
Reporter
“Another deal breaker…the restructuring of the national executive.”
Kareem Musa
“We’ve made proposals to them. They are open to those. They are discussing those proposals among themselves. Definitely we’ve been able to offer them middle ground on certain aspects of the structure of the Party. I just got a call from Mr. Paul Thompson this morning so that we can reconvene a second meeting so that we can see where we are in terms of those proposals.”
