THERE are those who would argue that last Sunday’s United National Congress (UNC) Ethics Forum is a contradiction in terms.

But to those who have remained faithful to the Opposition party, despite charges of corruption levelled against key party members, including its political leader, the party is on the threshold of a new beginning.

This seemed to be the collective opinion of those who spoke at Sunday’s forum at the Centre of Excellence.

UNC members at every level of the party attended the forum, including several former government ministers and senators.

UNC Political Leader WINSTON DOOKERAN at
the podium. At right is KENNETH LALLA,
former MP and retired chairman of the
Police Services Commission, Public
Service Commission and Defence
Force Commission sub-chaired
proceedings at the symposium.

No one objected when participants Errol Benjamin and Marlene Jaggernauth described the party’s political leader Winston Dookeran in glowing and almost messianic terms.

Jaggernauth described Dookeran’s ascent to the post of political leader as “a new dawn”, while Benjamin went further, stating: “He is a simple, effective, God-fearing man who shows the good qualities that were shown by good leaders like Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and others.

“We want a decent, God-fearing man who we can trust with our lives,” Benjamin said.

When it was his turn to address the gathering, Dookeran spoke about the need for integrity in public life, and the removal of criminal elements within the political process.

Coming from the leader of a party that left office with a plethora of corruption charges and allegations hanging over its collective head, what Dookeran said must have made some of the participants wince.

Promoting what he called “the new politics”, he told his audience that it was time to stop working the system: “There must be an abiding commitment to integrity in public affairs.”

Dookeran also shared some of his ideas on separating party and State, and on eliminating religious and ethnic nationalist tendencies.

“Our constitutional structures are clearly fostering divisiveness in our plural society,” he said, and added that it was critical at this time to put a “consensus building” process in place to formulate a truly democratic Constitution.

Dookeran also stressed the need to do away with political patronage and pass some Local Government powers on to communities in a genuine sense.

He also identified a source of future national conflict and made some suggestions on how this conflict could be averted, stressing the need for the identification of “a common set of values” to bind the country.

“There is a real and distinct possibility of implosion in our society, we run the risk of being a cleft nation,” he warned.

On unity and the unification process as it applies to politics, Dookeran said that shared values must be drawn upon to create principles and ideas that would truly move people towards political action.

He warned politicians to avoid the mistakes of the past and stay away from “patchwork designed for short-term political survival”.

He added: “A new political culture founded on ethics must now be promoted to effect political transformation.”

Dookeran also suggested that voters could play their part in transforming the country’s political culture.

The electorate, he said, should adopt a more mature approach towards voting and abandon the “ethnic cleavages” that govern election outcomes at present.