While entering Government may only occur with some type of strategic alliance, National Transformation Alliance leader Gary Griffith says he won’t sell his soul since he holds certain principles—and he’s seen what happened from 2010 to 2015.
And while there may be other parties that have more support, financing and seats, Griffith said, “At the end of the day the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—without us you cannot enter government, but our job is to ensure there’s mutual respect.”
The People’s Partnership, which was a coalition government comprising the United National Congress and other parties was in office from 2010-2015.
Griffith spoke about the issues at last Saturday’s NTA cottage meeting in St Joseph, the first of NTA’s many meetings, he said. Griffith noted he’d spent half of his life in St Joseph and was a “St Joseph boy.”
He said he was supposed to have been the UNC’s St Joseph candidate in 2007, but then had fallen out with the party and became a Congress of the People member. He said he was also to have been the PP’s by-election candidate in 2013 and the 2015 candidate.
Explaining the “third constituency” (voters who do not subscribe to the two main political parties), Griffith said this—from the ONR, NAR and COP day—could arguably be about 200,000 now and the NTA may even have 200,000 at present. But because of the Constitution’s “first past the post” system for elections, the “third constituency” can unfortunately never win an election on its own, he added.
He said the reason to be in a party is to win and for a party to enter government. Griffith said he has to walk a very thin line in ensuring, “We’re not used in any form or fashion while ensuring we’re properly represented, the third constituency is seen not to be used, and there’s full respect for other political parties.”
Saying he was in the Congress of the People and citing his military background, Griffith said it was actually more dangerous being a politician than being a soldier or police commissioner.
“As a politician, you never know who’ll stab you in the back. At least when you’re in the army or police, you know who the enemy is. In politics you never know who the enemy is, as the enemy could be right there as a Trojan Horse in your camp. So we’re very careful as to the persons we associate with,” Griffith explained.
While entering government may only occur with some type of strategic alliance, Griffith added, “I give you the promise with one thing: I’m not going to sell my soul to get into government. And you’d have seen that. I’ll stand by certain principles. We saw what happened from 2010 to 2015—let’s be honest about it.”
He said if there’s a strategic alliance between parties the People’s National Movement will be removed, but unless a proper foundation is built between parties it becomes a marriage of convenience and won’t last.
He said he was letting T&T know, “We know it needs an alliance but we’re not going to have a repeat of 2010 to 2015.”
He cited the 2010 decision for the five political leaders then to have gone to Fyzabad and signed a letter (the PP’s Fyzabad Accord), “And that was it. That can’t be the way to run a country or have a coalition in government.”
He said that signed away all the voters who agreed that one person was going to solely decide on all officers of government.
“And that shouldn’t be. All I’m asking is there should be some degree of mutual respect. There may be other parties that have more support, financing, seats, but at the end of the day the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—without us you cannot enter government but our job is to ensure there’s mutual respect,” Griffith said.
He said NTA wasn’t going to demonise the PNM or UNC since both parties had done “a heck of a lot” in T&T’s development but also made mistakes as all parties would.
“The NTA, we’ll make mistakes but I promise we won’t sell our soul or do anything for cheap political points, we won’t go into the gutter to destroy opponents,” Griffith added as he said that one party only “bad-talks” and tries to destroy him, “As I said I think he has a poster of me on his bedroom ceiling … I feel very sorry for him. He needs Jesus.”
