?Al­though the uni­ty agree­ment has not yet been signed by the three lead­ers, the Op­po­si­tion par­ties have worked out their seat arrange­ments for the May 24 gen­er­al elec­tion. As it stands now, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) will con­test 22 seats, Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), 17, and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), the is­land's two seats. Ac­cord­ing to sources, the three main par­ties will bat­tle with the rul­ing Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in a one-to-one fight in the 41 con­stituen­cies through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go. The UNC and COP have been meet­ing for the last week to ham­mer out the agree­ment for the snap elec­tion. They fi­nal­ly reached an agree­ment on Thurs­day night, and al­though UNC's Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and COP's Win­ston Dook­er­an met on Fri­day for three hours, the agree­ment was not signed. Up to last night they were iron­ing out the deal.

The UNC and COP agreed to fight the PNM on a joint plat­form. The joint plat­form will be launched on Wednes­day night at a venue along the East-West Cor­ri­dor. Sources said they would like to launch in Port-of-Spain. Sources re­vealed there will be one man­i­festo, one strat­e­gy and joint fi­nanc­ing of the cam­paign. It was al­so agreed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar would be­come the prime min­is­ter if the ac­com­mo­da­tion is suc­cess­ful. The UNC has held on to 14 of its 15 seats which it now has–Ca­roni Cen­tral, Ca­roni East, Ch­agua­nas West, Cou­va North, Cou­va South, Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la, Fyz­abad, Ma­yaro, Na­pari­ma, Oropouche East, Oropouche West, Princes Town North, Siparia, and Tabaquite. The UNC has sur­ren­dered the St Au­gus­tine seat to the COP, rul­ing out Vas­ant Bharath from re­turn­ing to the con­stituen­cy, and ac­tu­al­ly paving the way for at­tor­ney Prakash Ra­madar to con­test the seat.

Sources said Dook­er­an would not con­test the elec­tions, and there were all in­di­ca­tions that should the Op­po­si­tion form the next gov­ern­ment, Dook­er­an would be­come the next Pres­i­dent in 2012. The UNC wants to con­test the elec­tions in the fol­low­ing con­stituen­cies: Arou­ca/Mal­oney, Barataria/San Juan, Ch­agua­nas East, Pointe-a-Pierre, Port-of-Spain North/St Ann's West, Princes Town South/Table­land, St Joseph, and To­co/San­gre Grande. The UNC has screened a num­ber of po­ten­tial can­di­dates, six of whom have al­ready been cho­sen: Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Siparia), Jack Warn­er (Ch­agua­nas West), Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters (Ma­yaro), Clifton de Couteau (Princes Town South/Table­land), Dr Fuad Khan (Barataria/San Juan), and Roodal Mooni­lal (Oropouche East).

The COP will con­test 17 seats: Ari­ma, D'Abadie/O'Meara, Diego Mar­tin West, Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Diego Mar­tin North/East, La Brea, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West, Lopinot/Bon Air West, Point Fortin, Port-of-Spain South, San Fer­nan­do East, San Fer­nan­do West, St Ann's East, St Au­gus­tine, and Tu­na­puna. Sources re­vealed that the COP planned to put a lead­ing mem­ber of the le­gal pro­fes­sion in Tu­na­puna, to take on Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Es­ther Le Gen­dre. COP al­so in­tend­ed to put up as can­di­dates two of the coun­try's lead­ing trade union­ists, An­cel Ro­get and David Ab­du­lah. The agree­ment al­so leaves TOP to fight the PNM for the To­ba­go East and West seats. The agree­ment al­so states that To­ba­go will get full au­ton­o­my, once the Op­po­si­tion forms the next gov­ern­ment.