Former opposition leader Michael Baptiste has come to the rescue of embattled Political Leader of the Grenada United Labour Party (GULP), Gloria Payne-Banfield.

Baptiste who is currently in New York on a brief visit, said that Payne-Banfield is still in charge of the party and has the full support of the majority members of the executive.

He made the statement following claims made last week at a press conference by barrister-at-law, Reynold Benjamin that the executive had passed a vote of No-confidence in the female political leader and that a new leader would be elected at an upcoming convention.

Both Baptiste and Benjamin are the two deputy political leaders of Grenada¹s oldest political party. According to Baptiste, he wanted to be known that he is ³fully on the side² of Payne-Banfield, a former Cabinet-Secretary under the 1976-79 GULP government of its founder/leader, the late Sir Eric Matthew Gairy.
He said it is folly for anyone to talk of removing the political leader outside of a convention.

Baptiste dropped hints that Payne-Banfield would prevail and remain in charge of the party whenever the convention is held. The former government minister said the attack on the GULP political leader was coming from two impostors of the ruling New National Party (NNP) of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell.

This is an obvious reference to Benjamin and his close colleague, Dr. Keith Braveboy, another senior executive member of GULP. Both Benjamin and Braveboy were once associated with the so-called ³A² Team of the NNP when Dr. Mitchell was making moves to unseat its then leader, Herbert Blaize.

The Benjamin/Mitchell association ended when the current Prime Minister spearheaded a move to have the former replaced as General Secretary of NNP at a convention at Mc Donald¹s College in the early 1990¹s.

Benjamin was defeated by Joslyn Whiteman, the current Grenada Ambassador to the People¹s Republic of China (PRC)/ Mainland China.

Mitchell claimed that Benjamin had not to be replace for showing a lack of respect for him as leader of the party while Benjamin insisted that he was removed due to his attempt to put proper party structures in place to build a democratic organisation within the NNP.