DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

With few­er than two weeks un­til nom­i­na­tion day, the Hon­esty, Op­por­tu­ni­ty, Per­for­mance and Em­pow­er­ment (HOPE) po­lit­i­cal par­ty has with­drawn from the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, cit­ing an in­abil­i­ty to gain the nec­es­sary sup­port to mount a com­pet­i­tive cam­paign.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, HOPE Po­lit­i­cal Leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith ex­pressed pro­found dis­ap­point­ment over the de­ci­sion but ac­knowl­edged that de­spite five years of en­gag­ing with com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try, it could not es­tab­lish a vi­able path to vic­to­ry.

“Over the last five years, we have vis­it­ed com­mu­ni­ties through­out Trinidad and To­ba­go and shared our vi­sion for a bet­ter Trinidad and To­ba­go for our cit­i­zens. To­day, two weeks be­fore nom­i­na­tion day, we have not gar­nered the mo­men­tum and sup­port nec­es­sary to carve out a winnable space for HOPE in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. Con­se­quent­ly, we have de­cid­ed to with­draw from the 2025 elec­tion cam­paign,” the re­lease said.

How­ev­er, Hamel-Smith pledged to con­tin­ue col­lab­o­rat­ing with The Peo­ple’s Al­liance – com­pris­ing the Gary Grif­fith-led Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance and the NGO known as the Com­mu­ni­ty Ref­or­ma­tion Net­work (CRN).

His part­ing mes­sage to the even­tu­al win­ner of the 2025 elec­tion was to work to­ward na­tion­al uni­ty.

When con­tact­ed for com­ment, Grif­fith said the NTA was not dis­ap­point­ed, ac­knowl­edg­ing that elec­tions are chal­leng­ing. He said HOPE was ini­tial­ly pre­pared to con­test Diego Mar­tin North/East, a tra­di­tion­al­ly safe seat for the rul­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). The seat has been held by Colm Im­bert since 2010. Im­bert first won the seat in 1992 when it was called Diego Mar­tin East.

“It is re­al­ly not as easy as peo­ple think try­ing to go up for a gen­er­al elec­tion. The work you have to do, the fi­nance, the sup­port, the lo­gis­tics. Some­times it is very dif­fi­cult for po­lit­i­cal par­ties to ac­tu­al­ly par­tic­i­pate in a gen­er­al elec­tion. It should not, in any way, take away the sub­stance of those po­lit­i­cal par­ties,” Grif­fith said.

He al­so ac­knowl­edged HOPE’s promise to con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to the al­liance and hint­ed that an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty is ex­pect­ed to join the team to con­test Diego Mar­tin North/East.

“HOPE, they were go­ing to field a can­di­date in that con­stituen­cy. But based on di­a­logue with the oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty, I think it has been de­cid­ed that that par­ty will now field a can­di­date in­stead. So, it may not be that HOPE is no longer part of the Peo­ple’s Al­liance. It’s just that HOPE at this time is not go­ing to field a can­di­date in the gen­er­al elec­tion.”

How­ev­er, he urged HOPE to re­main en­gaged in the elec­toral process, cau­tion­ing against fad­ing in­to just an ac­tivist group.

“I can­not be dis­ap­point­ed. And I mean, I will con­tin­ue to hope that oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties con­tin­ue to go for­ward and not just be­come an ac­tivist group, be­cause that is what you will be­come if it is that you do not take part in the elec­toral process.”

On March 12, HOPE’s Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Karen Nunez-Tesheira re­signed fol­low­ing a con­tentious meet­ing with the CRN and the NTA.

Ac­cord­ing to Hamel-Smith who spoke with Guardian Me­dia on March 18, Nunez-Tesheira be­came up­set when her par­ty’s flags were not hoist­ed be­fore those of the NTA. He said he hoped to let ten­sions cool be­fore ad­dress­ing her con­cerns, not­ing that he had yet to re­ceive an of­fi­cial res­ig­na­tion let­ter.

Nunez-Tesheira was adamant that her de­ci­sion was fi­nal.