Gail Alexan­der &

Akash Sama­roo

UNC chair­man Dave Tan­coo is tight-lipped on why the par­ty with­drew from the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour.

How­ev­er, the chair­man of the coun­cil Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath says even though the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress may not want to abide by the coun­cil’s code of ethics, the par­ty will still be un­der scruti­ny.

Tan­coo wrote the coun­cil on Thurs­day stat­ing the UNC had with­drawn from the body and the par­ty re­mained com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion and T&T’s laws. Yes­ter­day Tan­coo de­clined com­ment on why the move was made.

But sources in the UNC claimed the par­ty had not­ed a pat­tern - in­clud­ing in the last elec­tion- where it had been sanc­tioned for “very triv­ial things” in­clud­ing those the UNC did not do. They said if there was a cred­i­bil­i­ty prob­lem where the coun­cil was con­cerned, the UNC couldn’t be part of that. A source fur­ther ex­plained that the par­ty felt there were enough laws re­gard­ing defama­tion and oth­er is­sues on T&T’s books to deal with any chal­lenges ahead.

Dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence, Guardian Me­dia sought to press UNC deputy leader Dr Roodal Mooni­lal on the par­ty’s de­ci­sion.

How­ev­er, Mooni­lal would on­ly re­it­er­ate that there are oth­er av­enues the pub­lic can ex­plore if there is any is­sue with the UNC’s con­duct.

“Each cit­i­zen in this coun­try has the right to ap­proach the court if they feel wronged, or if they want to seek re­dress or feel ag­griev­ed in any cir­cum­stance by the ac­tions of the UNC on the cam­paign trail. The cit­i­zens would judge our cam­paign when they cast their bal­lots by the bal­lot booth, that is how we will be judged, not by any in­sti­tu­tion.”

Ra­goonath, though, said it was pass­ing strange what the UNC did.

He added that even if the UNC does not want to abide by the coun­cil’s code of ethics, the par­ty will still be un­der scruti­ny.

“They don’t have to lis­ten to any­thing we have to say but if oth­er par­ties com­plain about them, we will sim­ply put it out there. We have no puni­tive mea­sures, you can do what you want or say what you want, we will sim­ply say to the pop­u­la­tion that this is a breach of the code.”

The Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct came in­to be­ing in Ju­ly 2014.

Of­fi­cials from the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment did not com­ment. But Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith, said the NTA is still a mem­ber of the coun­cil, “Be­cause we be­lieve re­spon­si­ble po­lit­i­cal be­hav­iour should be a cor­ner­stone of every po­lit­i­cal par­ty.”

“We al­so firm­ly be­lieve that the coun­cil, de­spite its lack of puni­tive au­thor­i­ty, serves as a vi­tal plat­form to es­tab­lish a base­line of deco­rum, re­spect, and ac­count­abil­i­ty in po­lit­i­cal dis­course. This is why we note with dis­ap­point­ment the de­ci­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress to with­draw from the coun­cil via of­fi­cial cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed 30th Jan­u­ary 2025.”

Grif­fith said the NTA will con­tin­ue to cham­pi­on re­spect­ful, eth­i­cal, and pro­fes­sion­al po­lit­i­cal con­duct, set­ting an ex­am­ple of how politi­cians and po­lit­i­cal par­ties should en­gage with one an­oth­er and the pub­lic.

“We are proud to stand apart from any al­liance or as­so­ci­a­tion that con­dones or turns a blind eye to un­eth­i­cal prac­tices, vul­gar rhetoric, or be­hav­iour de­signed to de­mean and de­stroy,” he added.

Grif­fith said the NTA will con­tin­ue en­gag­ing with all po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties, in­clud­ing the UNC and PNM, with re­spect and de­cen­cy.