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Swraj Paul vows to heal CPA rift

SINGAPORE: Lord Swraj Paul, India-born British parliamentarian and Labour member of the House of Lords, on Friday pledged to “heal the rift” in the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA).

He advanced this theme on the eve of his straight contest with Malaysian Minister Shafie Apdal for the CPA executive committee chairperson’s post. The election will take place at the 54th Commonwealth parliamentary conference in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.

Noting that the delegates should vote as individual parliamentarians and not as country representatives, Lord Paul told The Hindu over telephone that he was assuring them of his “fulltime commitment” to the essential mandate of healing the rift.

His being able to find time, as “a senior backbench parliamentarian,” should be seen in the light of his “right attitude” for the top post in the CPA. His opponent, on the other hand, was a fulltime Minister.

Lord Paul said the CPA was right now in “danger” of getting polarised on “East-West” lines. And, his campaign punch-line in this context was that he had already brought to his parliamentary career a synthesis of “East, West, South, and North” as commonly understood in political parlance.

Emphasising that “there is only one Commonwealth,” regardless of its diversity, he indicated that the delegates were being sensitised to the challenges of democratic success and economic-social progress across the entire spectrum. However, he was “concerned” that the CPA election was in danger of being determined through “deals,” which were suspected to have already been made.

In a statement, Hugh Bayley, leader of the British delegation to the CPA conference in Kuala Lumpur, expressed “disappointment” over the “allegations” that India and Malaysia were behind the suspected deal-making well in advance of Saturday’s poll. The delegates were reminded that there was no place for “bloc voting” in an association based on free individual choices.

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