Warner to settle for $1 salary as MP.
By: Richard Charan (Express).
Jack Warner will support Basdeo Panday for the Opposition Leader's position in the new Parliament, as a replacement for Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
And Warner is sticking to his promise to work for $1 as the new Member of Parliament for Chaguanas West.
Warner and Panday are co-leaders of the UNC-Alliance party, and won their seats in Monday's general election.
The party captured 15 seats.
It was during a speech to weeping supporters at Rienzi Complex, Couva, shortly after midnight yesterday that Warner spoke about a private meeting between himself and Panday three months ago.
"I sat down with Mr Panday at a private session. I said Mr Panday, I don't want to be prime minister. I don't want a ministry. I only want to represent the people of Chaguanas West."
Warner said: "I told him I don't want to be Leader of the Opposition. I have no aspirations for that and as far as I am concerned, if Mr Panday wants to be Opposition Leader, he has my vote."
Warner said the leadership issue would be a matter between Panday and Kamla Persad-Bissessar who held the position before the election was called.
Persad-Bissessar did not answer her cellphone yesterday.
A source close to her said Panday had often said he no longer wanted the job of Opposition Leader, which pays $23,000 a month, a figure substantially higher = than the $14,000 salary than a Member of Parliament gets.
Warner told supporters that despite the election licking for the UNC-A, there was still reason to smile.
He said the UNC-A support had done enough to prevent the PNM from getting its coveted two-thirds of the seats.
He said supporters could cheer because Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj was back in Parliament, there were two women in the Opposition, Persad-Bissessar and Mickela Panday, and the court could no longer bar Panday from Parliament because he had won his Couva North seat again.
"We are consoled by the fact that ... we have gotten rid of the COP once and for all," he said.
Warner called on supporters to keep their party T-shirts for the Local Government, due in July next year. He said a campaign would be launched to win every regional corporation.
