Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter/Pro­duc­er

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Two po­lit­i­cal par­ties that have dis­tanced them­selves from any for­mal part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) are now con­sid­er­ing join­ing forces with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA). 

And the NTA has of­fered the UNC a place in its po­lit­i­cal arrange­ment. 

Mere days af­ter it seemed as if the UNC had teamed up with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and the HOPE par­ty, both par­ties re­vealed they may sign an of­fi­cial agree­ment with the NTA for a strate­gic al­liance go­ing in­to the next gen­er­al elec­tion. 

News of this broke when Guardian Me­dia asked NTA leader Gary Grif­fith for a com­ment as it per­tained to the COP’s state­ment that de­spite me­dia re­ports, the par­ty had not for­mal­ly en­tered in­to any arrange­ment with the Op­po­si­tion. Grif­fith re­vealed that pri­or to that meet­ing at the UNC’s head­quar­ters, the NTA had been hav­ing week­ly dis­cus­sions with HOPE and the COP. 

“We have had reg­u­lar meet­ings for the last few months. The NTA, HOPE, COP and NGOs (non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions) and the on­ly thing that hap­pened was that they were in­vit­ed to a meet­ing with the po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC. So, it’s not that some­thing end­ed be­fore it was start­ed. There was a to­tal mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion by some to be­lieve this is some strate­gic al­liance, but it is not. That can on­ly take place if there is a MoU (Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing),” Grif­fith ex­plained. 

He then re­vealed, “Very soon, how­ev­er, there is a plan for us to form a strate­gic al­liance with an MoU be­tween po­lit­i­cal par­ties to­wards us mov­ing for­ward, es­pe­cial­ly as it per­tains to the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. That is be­ing draft­ed and hope­ful­ly, the par­ties that have been meet­ing on a reg­u­lar ba­sis will agree to it so we could have one com­mon goal.” 

Grif­fith ex­pect­ed that agree­ment to be for­malised in a few days. 

COP leader Kirt Sin­nette con­firmed that the par­ty had been in talks with the NTA even when he went to the UNC head­quar­ters last week. 

On Sun­day the par­ty clar­i­fied that it had not en­tered any of­fi­cial part­ner­ship with the UNC. 

“We had an MoU with the NTA and HOPE. We were hav­ing meet­ings for a while now. So what would have tran­spired is that when the call came to me (from the UNC) say­ing they want­ed to have a dis­cus­sion, I called HOPE, they did not make up their mind on what they want­ed to do but I told them I am go­ing down there to hear what the dis­cus­sion was go­ing for­ward. And they all got a re­port on what tran­spired with the leader of the UNC,” Sin­nette ex­plained. 

He could not con­firm that an agree­ment with the NTA would be signed off this week. 

Mean­while, HOPE par­ty’s deputy leader Karen Nunez-Tesheira con­firmed her par­ty was lean­ing to­wards Grif­fith’s NTA. 

“I wouldn’t say what you heard was not true. A num­ber of things came up in be­tween, but there will be what he is putting for­ward. The date may not be set in stone, but the in­ten­tion of putting some­thing in writ­ing, that is go­ing to be ac­cept­able and hope­ful­ly hold up. But there is some­thing in the works, per­haps not this week be­cause Christ­mas is in the air, but in terms of what he’s say­ing about a con­sid­er­a­tion for an agree­ment, yes, I would say that we are mov­ing de­fin­i­tive­ly in that di­rec­tion,” Nunez-Tesheira ex­plained. 

She too con­firmed there was no of­fi­cial arrange­ment with the UNC de­spite be­ing in­vit­ed, al­beit on short no­tice, to last week’s meet­ing. 

But Phillip Alexan­der’s Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty is still stand­ing firm with the UNC. 

“That COP’s in­ter­nal com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween leader and chair­man should nev­er have been in the pub­lic space, but that’s for them to iron out. The Op­po­si­tion Leader opened the door to all those who are in­ter­est­ed and are ca­pa­ble of be­ing part of a coali­tion of in­ter­ests, whether big or small. It is up to those par­ties to sort them­selves out and make their own de­ci­sions, but it is no re­flec­tion on the fu­ture of the coali­tion. We’re still at the talk stage, so peo­ple will come and peo­ple may go,” Alexan­der posit­ed. 

He re­mained of the view that a third par­ty in the elec­tion equa­tion would be noth­ing more than a nui­sance. 

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions.