Sto­ries by Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Talks are on among the Op­po­si­tion UNC, Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) and Garvin Nicholas’ Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND) for a col­lab­o­ra­tive “uni­ty” arrange­ment to con­test the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed this yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s con­fir­ma­tion that the UNC had been hold­ing dis­cus­sions with oth­er groups and that at least two small­er par­ties have ap­proached the UNC.

Speak­ing dur­ing the UNC’s Mon­day Night Re­port, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said some of her se­nior mem­bers had be­gun dis­cus­sions with the oth­er par­ties.

“If we can come to an agree­ment in time for this Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion, we’ll fight as a unit­ed force,” she said.

The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion is card­ed for Au­gust 14, while Nom­i­na­tion Day is June 26.

Yes­ter­day, NTA leader Grif­fith was mum on talks with the UNC but said gen­er­al­ly, “Mr ‘Lan­date’ has done so much to de­stroy and di­vide this great coun­try. We have seen too much ha­tred, di­vi­sion, vic­tim­i­sa­tion and in­tim­i­da­tion in the last eight years. Let the fo­cus not be seen as sim­ply unit­ing of par­ties. Let the com­mon goals be that of unit­ing the na­tion—it starts now.”

Guardian Me­dia con­firmed dis­cus­sions were on­go­ing be­tween the NTA and UNC for a strate­gic al­liance for the elec­tion.

Grif­fith was Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er in 2010 and lat­er Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter in her UNC/PP gov­ern­ment.

The NTA has been cam­paign­ing in the East-West cor­ri­dor, Point Fortin and oth­er ar­eas since ear­ly 2023.

Mean­while, MND leader Nicholas said the UNC was one of the par­ties they were talk­ing to. He had said re­cent­ly that the par­ty would con­test the elec­tion in Diego Mar­tin. Nicholas was a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al in Per­sad- Bisses­sar’s PP gov­ern­ment. He formed MND in 2016 and un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the 2019 LG and 2020 gen­er­al elec­tions.

“We had pre­lim­i­nary talks on col­lab­o­ra­tion, noth­ing’s fi­nalised yet but we hope to field ten can­di­dates in an arrange­ment,” Nicholas said.

“The re­al­i­ty is that no po­lit­i­cal par­ty in T&T has been able to ful­ly em­brace and un­der­stand the di­ver­si­ty or gov­ern in a way that caters to the wide range of in­ter­ests of the di­verse peo­ple.

“While I haven’t agreed with every­thing the UNC-led el­e­ment of the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship did, I’m ex­treme­ly grate­ful the lead­er­ship had the fore­sight to at least try to ac­com­mo­date di­verse in­ter­ests over 2010 to 2015. As a di­rect re­sult of that, Diego Mar­tin ben­e­fit­ed.”

He added, “Now that Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions are up­on us, the UNC has once again un­der­stood that al­low­ing par­ties that pos­sess a greater un­der­stand­ing of the lo­cal needs of the peo­ple and who are more close­ly aligned and con­nect­ed to these lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, to con­test with­out in­ter­fer­ence or com­pe­ti­tion from the UNC, gives the peo­ple of those ar­eas the best chance for the most ef­fec­tive lo­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“To this end, I, as MND leader, ac­knowl­edge the col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach and hope that we’ll be able to field ten can­di­dates of qual­i­ty who can be ac­cept­ed by the peo­ple of Diego Mar­tin. Nom­i­na­tion of can­di­dates re­mains open as we seek to put the best foot for­ward.”

Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots leader Wat­son Duke said the PDP and UNC haven’t spo­ken.

But Duke in a state­ment, Duke said, “The PDP re­gards the up­com­ing elec­tion as cru­cial for Trinidad and To­ba­go and rep­re­sents the fi­nal op­por­tu­ni­ty for the coun­try to take the last train from San Fer­nan­do.

“Fail­ing to re­move the PNM from pow­er will mean wait­ing for an­oth­er 20-30 years to try again. Cit­i­zens of the coun­try are aware of the ne­ces­si­ty for change, and the UNC has been can­did in its at­tempts to col­lab­o­rate with small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties to ex­pand their sup­port. “Al­though the PDP may not have the same quan­ti­ty of sup­port­ers as the UNC or PNM, our po­lit­i­cal ac­com­plish­ments set us at a lev­el play­ing field. For this rea­son, we are open to dis­cus­sions that fa­cil­i­tate a win-win-win out­come for T&T.”

Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Kirt Sinette said the COP had talks with UNC ear­li­er in the year but noth­ing was con­cre­tised.

He said, “There’s been no fur­ther out­reach from them re­cent­ly. But COP is open to work­ing with any­one who has T&T’s in­ter­est at heart—even the PNM.”

How­ev­er, Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty leader Philip Alexan­der is hav­ing none of it.

“The PEP has no in­ten­tion of link­ing up with ei­ther the PNM or UNC,” Alexan­der said.

PEP’s screen­ing was com­plet­ed last week­end and the par­ty will hold a me­dia brief­ing to­day to speak about its LG cam­paign.

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice Leader David Ab­du­lah said the MSJ had no talks with the UNC and did not plan to, not­ing they were fi­nal­is­ing plans to con­test a cor­po­ra­tion and pos­si­bly a sec­ond one al­so.