Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith has stressed that his par­ty wasn’t in­volved in invit­ing UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to a March 12 meet­ing be­ing held by NTA, HOPE and Com­mu­ni­ty Ref­or­ma­tion Net­work. The three groups have formed the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance coali­tion.

Grif­fith dis­tanced him­self from the in­vi­ta­tion is­sued by HOPE to Per­sad-Bisses­sar for the meet­ing which will be held at NTA’s Mt Lam­bert head­quar­ters.

“The NTA was nev­er in­volved in invit­ing Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to this meet­ing. The in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed by the HOPE, which is sep­a­rate from the NTA. Any dis­cus­sions or arrange­ments made be­tween HOPE and Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­main in­de­pen­dent of our or­gan­i­sa­tion,” he said.

“The NTA has al­ways been firm in its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that the 148,000 vot­ers who stood for trans­for­ma­tion in 2007 un­der the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) are nev­er sub­ject­ed to po­lit­i­cal ma­nip­u­la­tion or be­tray­al again.”

He said be­tween 2010 and 2015, third-par­ty sup­port­ers such as the COP, MSJ and oth­ers were used for “po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience” to en­sure the UNC se­cured a 21-seat ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment “then were dis­missed and dis­card­ed...”

Grif­fith added that he re­ject­ed the “mis­in­for­ma­tion be­ing spread re­gard­ing our stance on po­lit­i­cal al­liances.”

He ex­plained, “The NTA recog­nis­es both the UNC and the PNM as po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents and, as such, we wouldn’t ex­tend an in­vi­ta­tion to one while ex­clud­ing the oth­er. Our mis­sion is to con­test elec­tions on be­half of the peo­ple, not fa­cil­i­tate the am­bi­tions of po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties that have his­tor­i­cal­ly failed the elec­torate.”

He in­vit­ed all cit­i­zens—PNM, UNC, or oth­er­wise—to the meet­ing and urged UNC sup­port­ers “to recog­nise the pat­tern of de­cep­tion.” Grif­fith al­leged that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had “false­ly claimed” that she and her ex­ec­u­tive were dis­re­spect­ed by the NTA.

“On her state­ments re­gard­ing sup­posed ques­tions to an­swer, ac­count­abil­i­ty works both ways. Be­fore at­tempt­ing to in­ter­ro­gate oth­ers, she must first an­swer for the ac­tions of those with­in her own par­ty and ad­min­is­tra­tion,” he said

He claimed these in­clude “state con­tracts be­ing award­ed to crim­i­nal el­e­ments un­der her gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing the con­struc­tion of po­lice sta­tions.”

“Can she guar­an­tee that such reck­less gov­er­nance won’t be re­peat­ed? The re­lease of known crim­i­nal fig­ures back on­to the streets, who were pre­vi­ous­ly in­car­cer­at­ed, al­leged per­son­al re­la­tion­ships be­tween high-rank­ing in­di­vid­u­als in her par­ty and crim­i­nal el­e­ments, which raise se­ri­ous con­cerns about po­ten­tial con­flicts of in­ter­est.”

Grif­fith said these ques­tions must be an­swered be­fore any dis­cus­sion of al­liances or co-op­er­a­tion can even be con­sid­ered.

“With re­gard to her ask­ing for rel­e­vance, she con­ve­nient­ly for­gets it was she who would call me at all hours of the morn­ing to beg me to walk with her can­di­dates in San Fer­nan­do and the East-West Cor­ri­dor dur­ing lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions. Were we ir­rel­e­vant then? Did we pass some test? Is this hypocrisy and un­grate­ful­ness on her part?” Grif­fith asked

On UNC coali­tion part­ners, PEP and Love Move­ment, Grif­fith added, “Can you please tell T&T who se­lect­ed them, when was their last po­lit­i­cal meet­ing, how many vot­ers they’re bring­ing? Show when any of them last got their de­posits back when con­test­ing elec­tions. Name one oth­er per­son, be­sides Phillip Alexan­der and Lennox Smith, in the PEP and Love Move­ment re­spec­tive­ly.”

HOPE chair­man Steve Al­varez said the par­ty is dis­ap­point­ed but un­sur­prised by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­jec­tion of its in­vi­ta­tion to the March meet­ing.

“We be­lieve that for T&T to move for­ward and re­alise its tremen­dous po­ten­tial, we need our best peo­ple to par­tic­i­pate in the process and that means sup­port­ers of both the PNM and UNC,” he said.

“HOPE couldn’t in­vite the PNM’s leader to the Al­liance meet­ing, they’re in ser­vice and we’re at­tempt­ing to be the bet­ter al­ter­na­tive. It’s our be­lief, based on the his­to­ry of T&T’s elec­tions, that an al­liance is the on­ly path to po­lit­i­cal vic­to­ry against the rul­ing and well-or­gan­ised PNM. It’s hoped that the UNC is much more than its leader and that its mem­ber­ship will un­der­stand the need for uni­ty and join us in an en­deav­our to be a vi­able al­ter­na­tive to the present ad­min­is­tra­tion.

“With re­gards to the on­go­ing war of words be­tween the lead­ers of the UNC and NTA, it’s our hope that good sense would pre­vail and they would fo­cus on the task of re­build­ing our coun­try rather than con­tin­ue along a path that ben­e­fits no one.”

Al­varez said HOPE deputy leader Louis Lee Sing is away from T&T on per­son­al mat­ters.

“We ex­pect that when he re­turns, he’ll con­tin­ue sup­port­ing our ini­tia­tives. This is a crit­i­cal time in the his­to­ry of T&T and the world. The good peo­ple must find the men­tal and phys­i­cal strength to stand up for good gov­er­nance and hope or de­spair would pre­vail,” he said.