Ot­to Car­ring­ton

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and his Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) have gone in­to elec­tion mode and start­ed cam­paign­ing yes­ter­day in the mar­gin­al con­stituen­cy of St Joseph with a walk­a­bout along the Aranguez Main Road.

“The role of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty is to take part in an elec­tion. We are not go­ing to be an ac­tivist group,” Grif­fith told re­porters.

“We have seen it with sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal par­ties. They want to ra­ma­jay, have press con­fer­ences, and then when the time comes for you to rep­re­sent the coun­try, you are afraid of de­feat. We are not go­ing to be de­feat­ed. I do not lose. I in­tend to do ex­act­ly what is re­quired and to make sure we can em­brace Trinidad and To­ba­go, each and every arm of Trinidad and To­ba­go through­out the coun­try.”

The for­mer CoP shrugged off con­cerns that a third par­ty has lit­tle chance of suc­cess in T&T

He said: “Let me just clar­i­fy. This start­ed in 1981 with the ONR with 91,000 votes. Ten years lat­er, un­der the NAR, they moved to 127,000 votes. They moved 16 years lat­er to the Con­gress of the Peo­ple. It moved at 147,000 votes, so ob­vi­ous­ly at this time, that third so-called third con­stituen­cy of peo­ple who are not pay­ing them till they are dead or born in the UNC . . . could very well be 200,000.”

He de­scribed the NTA’s cam­paign as “Gary Grif­fith ver­sus Kei­th Row­ley” and de­clared that eliglible vot­ers would need to de­cide be­tween them.

“I don’t think there is one young per­son un­der 30 years old that can feel com­fort­able hav­ing a meet­ing with an in­di­vid­ual who al­ways spits out hate, vin­dic­tive­ness, and bit­ter­ness. I in­tend to em­brace those per­sons, those per­sons be­tween the ages of 16 to 30. I say 16 be­cause in less than two years they will be el­i­gi­ble to vote.

“This is a time for young per­sons to come out and make their stand and say, lis­ten, Dad­dy, Mom­my, you might be a pain in my UNC. I know be­cause of what is hap­pen­ing now in this coun­try, I want to make this a bet­ter coun­try. And I am go­ing to se­lect the best per­sons avail­able, not to lead the coun­try, but to serve the coun­try,” Grif­fith said.

The NTA po­lit­i­cal leader said he is op­ti­mistic about the par­ties chances in up­com­ing elec­tions be­cause “the peo­ple want change, yhey want pos­i­tive change.”

“We are not here to de­mo­nize and at­tack the PNM. The PNM and the UNC have done a lot for this coun­try. What we are miss­ing, or what is miss­ing. is a lack of prop­er lead­er­ship and good gov­er­nance. We have seen it,”

Grif­fith said the aim of the NTA is to trans­form Trinidad and To­ba­go by get­ting the best minds, and the best peo­ple.”