Hours af­ter the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress an­nounced it was meet­ing with small­er par­ties and some trade unions, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) said it would “drink wa­ter and mind its busi­ness.”

Ahead of yes­ter­day’s sched­uled screen­ing of po­ten­tial gen­er­al elec­tion nom­i­nees at the UNC’s head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas, the par­ty said its po­lit­i­cal leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, was meet­ing with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from sev­er­al or­gan­i­sa­tions.

They were the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND), Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU) and Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA). An al­liance was lat­er formed among the en­ti­ties.

The NTA was not part of the talks.

How­ev­er, in a state­ment, NTA leader Gary Grif­fith said it re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that the bridge con­stituen­cy of in­de­pen­dent, float­ing vot­ers is gen­uine­ly rep­re­sent­ed and nev­er ex­ploit­ed or tak­en for grant­ed.

“We find it in­ter­est­ing that small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties who have been sum­moned by an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty and who were re­cent­ly la­belled as vote split­ters, and pop-up par­ties, are now seen as rel­e­vant play­ers in dis­cus­sions about the fu­ture of gov­er­nance. What­ev­er hap­pened to ‘We can win the next gen­er­al elec­tions alone?’ Did some­one wake up and smell the cof­fee, and re­al­i­ty kicked in?

“This shift in per­spec­tive un­der­scores the evolv­ing dy­nam­ics of pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go. As for the NTA, we will drink our wa­ter and mind our busi­ness. While oth­ers may fo­cus on form­ing ‘Cos­met­ic Al­liances’, the NTA re­mains ded­i­cat­ed to en­sur­ing the voic­es of in­de­pen­dent vot­ers are heard and their con­cerns pri­ori­tised,” the NTA said.

But re­spond­ing to the NTA while hold­ing dis­cus­sions with par­ties and unions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ex­plained that the UNC is will­ing to work with those who share their val­ues.

How­ev­er, she was adamant she could not tol­er­ate Grif­fith’s at­tacks against UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lean John.

“I can­not have a leader of a par­ty at­tack­ing an elect­ed deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress on a reg­u­lar ba­sis and then you want to come and hug up the UNC. It can’t work. Ms John is an elect­ed leader of a par­ty, not once, but more than once.

“Un­for­tu­nate­ly, that’s where we dif­fer. I have great love and re­spect for her, for her com­pe­tence, and I can­not have some oth­er peo­ple at­tack­ing my elect­ed deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and that is the rea­son why I say we have dif­fer­ences of opin­ion.

“We may have com­mon in­ter­est, which is we want to get rid of this wicked in­com­pe­tent gov­ern­ment, but we must have more than just that. We can­not be at­tack­ing each oth­er if we are to work to­geth­er as team.”

In its state­ment, the NTA ques­tioned some of the po­lit­i­cal lead­ers in­vit­ed by the UNC to dis­cuss the al­liance.

“We will note, how­ev­er, the in­clu­sion of an in­di­vid­ual who, over the years, has made the most vile state­ments and vowed to ‘work for the PNM for free’ to en­sure op­po­si­tion forces do not form the next gov­ern­ment. How and if this af­fects the oth­er par­ties re­mains to be seen,” it said.

Af­ter unit­ing with UNC dur­ing the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion last year, Grif­fith ap­peared to have some frac­tures in his ef­forts to­wards an al­liance, af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar made com­ments on a plat­form re­gard­ing third par­ties pulling their weight in Feb­ru­ary.

In June, Grif­fith sent a let­ter to the UNC po­lit­i­cal leader ask­ing about the UNC/NTA al­liance.

He went on to ques­tion Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “ap­par­ent ob­ses­sion” with de­fend­ing John from crit­i­cism, and added his par­ty would not be part of any “po­lit­i­cal do­mes­tic vi­o­lence.”