Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­ject­ed a “One Love” out­reach by the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance (PATT) coali­tion—com­pris­ing HOPE, Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), and the Com­mu­ni­ty Ref­or­ma­tion Net­work. She al­so said the UNC was not in­ter­est­ed in at­tend­ing the coali­tion’s March 12 pub­lic meet­ing.

Say­ing that these par­ties were all asked a num­ber of ques­tions, which she list­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Yet no an­swer has been forth­com­ing. They are wast­ing sen­si­ble peo­ple’s time. How­ev­er, it is a democ­ra­cy, and they are en­ti­tled to do what they want, but the UNC has al­ready made it crys­tal clear that we will not be as­so­ci­at­ed with the NTA.”

This comes af­ter HOPE chair­man Steve Al­varez stat­ed that the Pro­gres­sive Al­liance coali­tion wrote to Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day, invit­ing her and UNC mem­bers to PATT’s pub­lic meet­ing at East­ern Main Road, Mt Lam­bert.

He said the ul­ti­mate goal was for all par­ties to unite to end the “ten years of mis­man­age­ment” that T&T has suf­fered, and they want the UNC to be part of their coali­tion.

Al­varez added, “Ul­ti­mate­ly, our goal is for one big coali­tion, so Trinidad and To­ba­go has the best rep­re­sen­ta­tives. Re­build­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go re­quires all hands on deck. The in­ten­tion is not to ‘fight down’ any­one. The com­mon en­e­my is the mis­man­age­ment of the coun­try.”

PATT an­tic­i­pates fill­ing the lo­ca­tion’s carpark, which has space for over 1,000 peo­ple. HOPE is al­so in dis­cus­sions with Mick­ela Pan­day’s Pa­tri­ot­ic Front re­gard­ing coali­tion links and has spo­ken to so-called UNC “dis­si­dent” MP Rush­ton Paray.

HOPE and the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance were in talks last year to­wards an al­liance with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple un­der then-COP leader Kirt Sin­nette. How­ev­er, new COP leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is fo­cus­ing on an al­liance with the UNC, has re­ject­ed the HOPE/NTA/COP part­ner­ship.

Al­varez stat­ed that the lat­est ad­di­tion to PATT is the CRN, head­ed by Roshan Ali. They are a non-prof­it so­cial work group ac­tive in Ch­agua­nas, Cunu­pia, and north Trinidad. He said CRN’s mem­ber­ship, com­pris­ing for­mer UNC mem­bers, is over 100.

‘One Love’—HOPE urges Kam­la

Al­varez said the in­vi­ta­tion to PATT’s March meet­ing was sent yes­ter­day to Per­sad-Bisses­sar from HOPE leader Hamel-Smith.

It ref­er­enced the UNC’s De­cem­ber in­vi­ta­tion to meet, the mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion that oc­curred, and Hamel-Smith’s in­di­ca­tion that he would have been hap­py to meet her in ear­ly 2025. It in­vit­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the UNC’s ex­ec­u­tive, and its mem­ber­ship to at­tend PATT’s March meet­ing, which fo­cus­es on trans­for­ma­tive mea­sures to re­build T&T.

Hamel-Smith’s let­ter stat­ed, “We look for­ward to meet­ing you on 12th March 2025. At this junc­ture, it would be ap­pro­pri­ate to re­mind our­selves of Bob Mar­ley’s re­frain, ‘One Love! One Heart!’ The lyrics of which are at­tached …”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in re­sponse to Guardian Me­dia’s queries, said, “These par­ties were all asked the fol­low­ing: When did they have in­ter­nal elec­tions? Are their ex­ec­u­tives elect­ed by their mem­ber­ship? What are their reg­is­tered mem­ber­ships? What is the ge­o­graph­i­cal spread of their mem­ber­ships? What hu­man, fi­nan­cial, and tech­ni­cal re­sources do they pos­sess? Who are the mem­bers of their screen­ing com­mit­tees? How many peo­ple ap­plied for seats? Was any me­dia in at­ten­dance to wit­ness their can­di­date screen­ing events, as seen with the UNC and PNM?”

“All of these ques­tions have been asked of these par­ties by cit­i­zens. Yet no an­swer has been forth­com­ing. They are wast­ing sen­si­ble peo­ple’s time. The en­tire coun­try sees the ridicu­lous­ness of what they are do­ing. Quite frankly, it is be­yond em­bar­rass­ing at this point,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added.

“How­ev­er, it is a democ­ra­cy, and they are en­ti­tled to do what they want, but the UNC has al­ready made it crys­tal clear that we will not be as­so­ci­at­ed with the NTA.”

Pan­day par­ty talks, out­reach to Paray, open to PN­Mites

Al­varez said there are “on­go­ing dis­cus­sions” with Mick­ela Pan­day’s Pa­tri­ot­ic Front. Pan­day did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s query on this.

Al­varez stat­ed that their coali­tion be­gan speak­ing of­fi­cial­ly with UNC’s Paray a month ago. “He is still with UNC, hop­ing to be cho­sen to con­test Ma­yaro and bring the change UNC needs.” Paray did not re­spond yes­ter­day.

Al­varez said some COP mem­bers still feel COP should be part of PATT. “Whether or not you call them ‘COP dis­si­dents’, they are in­vit­ed to our March meet­ing—per­sons like COP’s chair­man Lons­dale Williams and Wen­dell Ever­s­ley.”

He added that the March meet­ing is open to all, in­clud­ing dis­sat­is­fied PN­Mites. Al­varez said HOPE and NTA plan to con­test the elec­tion un­der their re­spec­tive ban­ners, and CRN un­der HOPE’s. He stat­ed that PATT is open to arrange­ments with the UNC on seats—but on­ly if the UNC is part of PATT’s al­liance.