Carisa Lee

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Coali­tion for Trans­for­ma­tion (NCT) Nali­ni Di­al be­lieves the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front head­ed by Mick­ela Pan­day should have had its ducks in a row be­fore it an­nounced its in­ten­tion to con­test the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

"Be­fore you come to the pub­lic you must be sure of what you want to do," Di­al said.

"We are not boast­ing, we don't have 41 can­di­dates, we have two and that's what we are an­nounc­ing.

On Tues­day, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front, who three weeks ago an­nounced it's in­ten­tion to con­test all 41 seats bowed out of this year's elec­tion race.

Di­al said pri­or to the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front's de­ci­sion both par­ties were part of a meet­ing host­ed by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day with oth­er small par­ties with hopes of unit­ing.

"We speak to any par­ty you know once they on the same path," Di­al said.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to Mick­ela for a re­sponse to Di­al's state­ment. She said they were not aware of the elec­tion date when they made the an­nounce­ment and did what the par­ty thought was best. She said an elec­tion is not con­test­ed for con­test­ing sake.

"It's about peo­ple be­fore pol­i­tics," Pan­day said.

The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader con­firmed that she was part of a meet­ing with the NCT and oth­er small po­lit­i­cal par­ties but they couldn't come to an agree­ment.

But Di­al said the par­ty's ob­jec­tive was al­ways to be part of coali­tion Gov­ern­ment even though plans to con­test the gen­er­al elec­tion un­der one um­brel­la fell through.

"A lot of them want­ed to keep their lo­go and their signs," she said.

"We couldn't come to a joint de­ci­sion," she con­tin­ued.

She con­firmed she is cur­rent­ly in talks with oth­er par­ties and an in­de­pen­dent can­di­date.

Di­al an­nounced Pe­ter Amann as the NCT's can­di­date for D'Abadie O'Meara. He con­test­ed the same seat in 2015 for the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic De­vel­op­ment Par­ty.

She said the par­ty is still cam­paign­ing to learn the prob­lems.