Congress of the People (COP) political leader Prakash Ramdhar was re-elected to the helm of the party at Sunday’s internal election for the post of political leader of the party.
Ramdhar polled 1,475 votes, while his two challengers Carolyn Seepersad Bachan got 1,030 and deputy political leader Dr. Lincoln Douglas collected 172 votes in the 19 polling stations in Trinidad and Tobago.
It was described as a very low voter-turnover as only 2,443 voted out of a membership of 40,000.
This means that only 6.1 percent participated in the election, according to Seepersad-Bachan.
Ramdhar said the party will hit the ground running, with a return to its street talk public forum and efforts to strengthen the COP’s position with the ruling People’s Partnership (PP).
The COP is one of the other major partners in Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s coalition government.
The party had won six seats in the May 2010 General Election and formed a coalition with the United National Congress (UNC) led by Persad-Bissessar.
However, there have been arguments that the COP has strayed from its policy of “new politics,” which has led to the party losing nearly all the seats it held in the Local Government election earlier this year.
