Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment, which is not con­test­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion, is now go­ing to be part of the ac­com­mo­da­tion with the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, MND leader Garvin Nicholas has con­firmed.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued a uni­ty call re­cent­ly for small­er par­ties to have an arrange­ment with the UNC to con­test the Au­gust 14 LG Elec­tion. Nom­i­na­tion Day for can­di­dates is to­mor­row.

Fol­low­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s call, talks be­gan with Gary Grif­fith’s NTA. At that time, Nicholas had said the MND was open to talks and had pro­ject­ed pre­sent­ing 10 Diego Mar­tin can­di­dates in the arrange­ment.

But last week, Nicholas said the MND wouldn’t con­test and wouldn’t sup­port any par­ty specif­i­cal­ly but would seek to guide vot­ers. He’d cit­ed “analy­sis of the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal cli­mate, po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ments, MND’s re­sources, the abil­i­ty to present 10 can­di­dates now and the work done by oth­ers.”

Nicholas had said there are good peo­ple from oth­er par­ties who’d been work­ing the “ground” and he be­lieved that by step­ping aside, there would be greater chance for them to win.

Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, in an­oth­er change, Nicholas said, “Sub­se­quent to hav­ing tak­en the de­ci­sion that the MND would not field can­di­dates in this Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion, we held fur­ther dis­cus­sions and agreed to be part of the ac­com­mo­da­tion with the UNC and NTA in Diego Mar­tin to help bring about suc­cess at the polls.

“The MND will be work­ing along­side the 10 ac­com­mo­da­tion can­di­dates (in Diego Mar­tin) to of­fer what­ev­er as­sis­tance we can be­cause we be­lieve that change is es­sen­tial if de­vel­op­ment is to take place and be a bea­con of hope for those who’ve all but giv­en up on the pol­i­tics as a means for pos­i­tive trans­for­ma­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar is ex­pect­ed to re­veal the full ac­com­mo­da­tion arrange­ment at to­mor­row’s launch of the Op­po­si­tion’s can­di­dates at Na­pari­ma Boys’ High School in San Fer­nan­do.

So far, it’s un­der­stood the UNC will con­test all seats in the sev­en cor­po­ra­tion ar­eas it con­trols, par­tic­u­lar­ly fo­cused on hold­ing San­gre Grande (which it con­trols) and tak­ing San Fer­nan­do.

The NTA will sup­port UNC in all ar­eas but won’t con­test in San­gre Grande or San Fer­nan­do, of­fi­cials said. How­ev­er, NTA will be the dom­i­nant op­po­si­tion con­tes­tant in PoS, Diego Mar­tin and Point Fortin, which the PNM con­trols. UNC will un­like­ly field can­di­dates in those re­gions. The NTA al­so has can­di­dates along­side UNC’s in San Juan, Tu­na­puna and Ari­ma, it was in­di­cat­ed.

Apart from MND lend­ing sup­port, David John’s Na­tion­al De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Con­gress, which had want­ed to join the uni­ty ef­fort, is al­so ex­pect­ed to give sup­port from the side­lines.

PNM troops present to­day

Mean­while, the PNM will present its 141 can­di­dates at a spe­cial con­ven­tion at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts in Port-of-Spain to­day.

PNM leader, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, will al­so ad­dress the gath­er­ing.

The PNM is pre­sent­ing a mix of in­cum­bents and new faces, in­clud­ing two for­mer UNC coun­cil­lors who’ve joined PNM, Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia in Ari­ma Cen­tral and Mar­cus Gird­harie in Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la.

PNM sources yes­ter­day hint­ed there may be more signs of UNC “crossovers” vis­i­ble to­day.

The PNM, which is tar­get­ing all 14 cor­po­ra­tions—af­ter los­ing sev­en to the UNC in the 2019 LG elec­tion—is fo­cus­ing on S/Grande which UNC holds. That cam­paign is be­ing co-or­di­nat­ed by To­co MP Roger Munroe. It was co-or­di­nat­ed in 2019 by PNM deputy leader Ro­han Sinanan. The PNM is al­so seek­ing to wipe out UNC pres­ence in the San Fer­nan­do Cor­po­ra­tion, where the UNC won three seats in 2019.