While en­ter­ing Gov­ern­ment may on­ly oc­cur with some type of strate­gic al­liance, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance leader Gary Grif­fith says he won’t sell his soul since he holds cer­tain prin­ci­ples—and he’s seen what hap­pened from 2010 to 2015.

And while there may be oth­er par­ties that have more sup­port, fi­nanc­ing and seats, Grif­fith said, “At the end of the day the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—with­out us you can­not en­ter gov­ern­ment, but our job is to en­sure there’s mu­tu­al re­spect.”

The Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship, which was a coali­tion gov­ern­ment com­pris­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and oth­er par­ties was in of­fice from 2010-2015.

Grif­fith spoke about the is­sues at last Sat­ur­day’s NTA cot­tage meet­ing in St Joseph, the first of NTA’s many meet­ings, he said. Grif­fith not­ed he’d spent half of his life in St Joseph and was a “St Joseph boy.”

He said he was sup­posed to have been the UNC’s St Joseph can­di­date in 2007, but then had fall­en out with the par­ty and be­came a Con­gress of the Peo­ple mem­ber. He said he was al­so to have been the PP’s by-elec­tion can­di­date in 2013 and the 2015 can­di­date.

Ex­plain­ing the “third con­stituen­cy” (vot­ers who do not sub­scribe to the two main po­lit­i­cal par­ties), Grif­fith said this—from the ONR, NAR and COP day—could ar­guably be about 200,000 now and the NTA may even have 200,000 at present. But be­cause of the Con­sti­tu­tion’s “first past the post” sys­tem for elec­tions, the “third con­stituen­cy” can un­for­tu­nate­ly nev­er win an elec­tion on its own, he added.

He said the rea­son to be in a par­ty is to win and for a par­ty to en­ter gov­ern­ment. Grif­fith said he has to walk a very thin line in en­sur­ing, “We’re not used in any form or fash­ion while en­sur­ing we’re prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed, the third con­stituen­cy is seen not to be used, and there’s full re­spect for oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties.”

Say­ing he was in the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and cit­ing his mil­i­tary back­ground, Grif­fith said it was ac­tu­al­ly more dan­ger­ous be­ing a politi­cian than be­ing a sol­dier or po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

“As a politi­cian, you nev­er know who’ll stab you in the back. At least when you’re in the army or po­lice, you know who the en­e­my is. In pol­i­tics you nev­er know who the en­e­my is, as the en­e­my could be right there as a Tro­jan Horse in your camp. So we’re very care­ful as to the per­sons we as­so­ciate with,” Grif­fith ex­plained.

While en­ter­ing gov­ern­ment may on­ly oc­cur with some type of strate­gic al­liance, Grif­fith added, “I give you the promise with one thing: I’m not go­ing to sell my soul to get in­to gov­ern­ment. And you’d have seen that. I’ll stand by cer­tain prin­ci­ples. We saw what hap­pened from 2010 to 2015—let’s be hon­est about it.”

He said if there’s a strate­gic al­liance be­tween par­ties the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment will be re­moved, but un­less a prop­er foun­da­tion is built be­tween par­ties it be­comes a mar­riage of con­ve­nience and won’t last.

He said he was let­ting T&T know, “We know it needs an al­liance but we’re not go­ing to have a re­peat of 2010 to 2015.”

He cit­ed the 2010 de­ci­sion for the five po­lit­i­cal lead­ers then to have gone to Fyz­abad and signed a let­ter (the PP’s Fyz­abad Ac­cord), “And that was it. That can’t be the way to run a coun­try or have a coali­tion in gov­ern­ment.”

He said that signed away all the vot­ers who agreed that one per­son was go­ing to sole­ly de­cide on all of­fi­cers of gov­ern­ment.

“And that shouldn’t be. All I’m ask­ing is there should be some de­gree of mu­tu­al re­spect. There may be oth­er par­ties that have more sup­port, fi­nanc­ing, seats, but at the end of the day the whole is greater than the sum of its parts—with­out us you can­not en­ter gov­ern­ment but our job is to en­sure there’s mu­tu­al re­spect,” Grif­fith said.

He said NTA wasn’t go­ing to de­monise the PNM or UNC since both par­ties had done “a heck of a lot” in T&T’s de­vel­op­ment but al­so made mis­takes as all par­ties would.

“The NTA, we’ll make mis­takes but I promise we won’t sell our soul or do any­thing for cheap po­lit­i­cal points, we won’t go in­to the gut­ter to de­stroy op­po­nents,” Grif­fith added as he said that one par­ty on­ly “bad-talks” and tries to de­stroy him, “As I said I think he has a poster of me on his bed­room ceil­ing … I feel very sor­ry for him. He needs Je­sus.”