Kim­ber­ly Mack­han

The two ma­jor Op­po­si­tion groups in Trinidad and To­ba­go have agreed to strike a deal by Thurs­day, to unite and fight Patrick Man­ning's Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) in the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, and Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) po­lit­i­cal leader, Win­ston Dook­er­an, said the po­lit­i­cal ac­cord would in­clude the seats that both the UNC and COP would fight in the elec­tion. Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Dook­er­an al­so said the pro­posed po­lit­i­cal ac­cord would in­clude their plans for a com­mon man­i­festo against the PNM. Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­scribed the dis­cus­sions yes­ter­day at The House of Chan Restau­rant at Emer­ald Plaza in St Au­gus­tine as a "quan­tum leap," and Dook­er­an said he was con­fi­dent. Both Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Dook­er­an ac­knowl­edged that there were ob­sta­cles in unit­ing their par­ties, but both po­lit­i­cal lead­ers re­mained pos­i­tive about a coali­tion be­tween the UNC and the COP for the next gen­er­al elec­tion, sched­uled to be held with­in 90 days.

"There are many rivers to cross, and we shall cross them to­geth­er," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

"We have made a quan­tum leap... We have a com­mon vi­sion...I want to say to our cit­i­zens: 'This will hap­pen...We will have an ac­cord...I see noth­ing stand­ing in our way, once we have that com­mit­ment. It will hap­pen.'" She added that there was no doubt in every­one's mind that the UNC and COP re­mained com­mit­ted to good gov­er­nance, which could on­ly hap­pen through unit­ing the two po­lit­i­cal par­ties. Dook­er­an said he and Per­sad-Bisses­sar agreed that the UNC and the COP would "con­duct the elec­tion on a one-to-one process" and re­frain from split­ting the Op­po­si­tions' votes against the PNM, like in the 2007 gen­er­al elec­tion.

"No seat will be safe for the PNM," he said. He added: "What­ev­er hur­dles there are, we will cross...Time is short, but the com­mit­ment is there; the oblig­a­tion is there." Dook­er­an was re­spond­ing to the loss of sev­er­al mar­gin­al seats from the Op­po­si­tion to the PNM in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, be­cause the Op­po­si­tion votes were di­vid­ed be­tween the UNC and the COP. Among these mar­gin­al seats the Op­po­si­tion lost to the PNM were Barataria/San Juan, St Joseph, Tu­na­puna and Pointe-a-Pierre. Ac­cord­ing to Dook­er­an, the po­lit­i­cal ac­cord would cov­er the is­sues that were rel­e­vant, of­fer­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go a for­mu­la that would be and un­break­able in to­day's pol­i­tics. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that two three-mem­ber teams from the UNC and the COP would meet as soon as this morn­ing, to fi­nalise their po­lit­i­cal ac­cord for unit­ing and de­feat­ing the PNM. She de­clined to re­veal the mem­bers of each team.