With sev­en months to term's end and gen­er­al elec­tion ahead, there'll be a Pan­day in­volved in up­com­ing polls—maybe even two.

For­mer prime min­is­ter and UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day said he has been speak­ing to sev­er­al peo­ple from small­er par­ties about pre­sent­ing a unit­ed po­lit­i­cal force as an al­ter­na­tive for vot­ers dis­en­chant­ed with the PNM and UNC.

Sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties are at­tend­ing a meet­ing on Wednes­day, which he has called re­gard­ing the plan.

Pan­day, 86, spoke to Guardian Me­dia last Thurs­day, a cou­ple of days af­ter re­turn­ing from the UK. He said he had a med­ical check-up and as­sured he was al­right.

Pan­day has re­cent­ly been lob­by­ing on so­cial me­dia for change and the com­ing to­geth­er of small par­ties. Among his mes­sages, Pan­day had said, "It must be pel­lu­cid­ly clear to all the 'small­er' po­lit­i­cal par­ties in T&T that un­der the present po­lit­i­cal sys­tem there is no way they are go­ing to win any seats in Par­lia­ment. If they are se­ri­ous in any mean­ing­ful par­tic­i­pa­tion in the po­lit­i­cal process then they must unite in a strug­gle to change the sys­tem. That means chang­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion. To do so they must get to­geth­er and con­test the next gen­er­al elec­tions un­der a sin­gle ban­ner. Per­sist­ing in the blame game will not solve any­thing. What do you think?"

He al­so post­ed, "Hav­ing re­gard to the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing state of af­fairs in our coun­try I think the time has come when those of us who seek mean­ing­ful change must come to­geth­er and work on a plan to do some­thing about it."

Pan­day had sought feed­back on whether peo­ple would at­tend a meet­ing to dis­cuss his idea.

On Thurs­day, he said that if there was noth­ing new on the po­lit­i­cal hori­zon for vot­ers, the sit­u­a­tion with the PNM and UNC would con­tin­ue, the Con­sti­tu­tion would re­main un­changed, and T&T will con­tin­ue as it has been go­ing.

"There are many who are dis­en­chant­ed with both par­ties. At this point, they out­num­ber the oth­ers. If we can unite the peo­ple who are dis­en­chant­ed with these mono­lith­ic par­ties—these peo­ple who are the elec­toral ma­jor­i­ty in T&T—that may be the on­ly hope for T&T," he added. "So I've been talk­ing to many peo­ple about pre­sent­ing a unit­ed force in elec­tions, bring­ing to­geth­er all the small par­ties on a joint ba­sis. "

He said he ex­pects his daugh­ter Mick­ela's Pa­tri­ot­ic Front par­ty—which is con­test­ing the elec­tion—will be part of such a force.

Pan­day de­clined to iden­ti­fy who he had been talk­ing to. "But there's been some good re­spons­es," he added.

He said the first meet­ing was planned for Wednes­day at 6 pm at Gas­ton Court, Ch­agua­nas. This would ex­am­ine com­ing to­geth­er and the way for­ward.

"...Any par­ty which I haven't been able to con­tact yet can al­so at­tend," he said.

Pan­day said he had no in­ten­tion of con­test­ing a seat in elec­toral pol­i­tics but, "One doesn't know what the fu­ture holds. My task, how­ev­er, is sim­ply aimed at get­ting to­geth­er the peo­ple who are out­side of the two big par­ties, so small­er par­ties with­in a unit­ed ef­fort can have a voice in Par­lia­ment and we can try to change the Con­sti­tu­tion."

We are com­ing—par­ty lead­ers

Checks con­firmed sev­er­al ac­tive po­lit­i­cal per­son­al­i­ties—in­clud­ing for­mer PP ad­min­is­tra­tion mem­bers—have spo­ken with Pan­day and are at­tend­ing his meet­ing. He has al­so raised the idea with some cur­rent UNC mem­bers in the last two weeks.

Con­gress of the Peo­ple leader Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan said on Thurs­day, "Yes, I've been talk­ing with Mr Pan­day. I've al­ways ad­vo­cat­ed the prin­ci­ple of com­ing to­geth­er as coali­tion pol­i­tics is still very rel­e­vant—es­pe­cial­ly in T&T's cir­cum­stances where every­one needs rep­re­sen­ta­tion. We'll see how it goes."

Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice leader David Ab­du­lah said, "Mr Pan­day spoke to me be­fore he went over­seas. We're sched­uled to meet short­ly."

Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment leader Garvin Nicholas said, "I'll at­tend Wednes­day's meet­ing. Mr Pan­day's a for­mer prime min­is­ter and I'm go­ing out of re­spect. If Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Row­ley called me to dis­cuss any ideas, I'd do too. I agree there must be some oth­er force to ex­ert in­flu­ence on the pol­i­tics or else the sit­u­a­tion will re­main the same. But my main fo­cus is the three Diego Mar­tin seats."

Last Fri­day, New Na­tion­al Vi­sion leader Fuad Abu Bakr said he echoed Pan­day's sen­ti­ments on the need for some­thing dif­fer­ent apart from the two ma­jor par­ties, "His move is a step in the right di­rec­tion and we'll at­tend to see what de­vel­ops from the meet­ing and how en­ti­ties might come to­geth­er to take T&T for­ward the right way. He's made an ef­fort to start, it's not the first or last, but we're open-mind­ed."

Flu-bur­dened ex-UNC min­is­ter Fin­bar Gan­ga, who said he had missed an ear­li­er call from Pan­day, said he woulld "see" if he would at­tend Wednes­day's meet­ing.

De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty of T&T (DPTT) leader Steve Al­varez said, "I'm at­tend­ing Mr Pan­day's meet­ing. It's what's re­quired. This is the on­ly chance third par­ties can have to be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly and it's the best op­tion to con­test all 41 seats if every­one comes to­geth­er."

POS Peo­ple's Move­ment leader Louis Lee Sing said the is­sue was broached with him late last year (not by Pan­day) but he wasn't con­tact­ed re­cent­ly. "But any­thing that'll bring re­lief to T&T is worth ex­plor­ing at this time," he said.

Ex-PP min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath had no com­ment.

Sev­er­al UNC MPs said they had not heard from Pan­day.

UNC's Gan­ga Singh was un­avail­able. He had launched a uni­ty call at a 2018 func­tion at­tend­ed by Pan­day, De­vant Ma­haraj, UNC's Fuad Khan, Bharath, Jack Warn­er and oth­ers. They all sup­port­ed the call. Khan said last Fri­day he had not heard from Pan­day.

In the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions, Elec­tions and Bound­aries Com­mis­sion's pre­lim­i­nary re­sults showed MSJ, PPM, COP and MND with re­spec­tive votes rang­ing from a high of 2,635 (MSJ) to 404 (MND). MSJ, COP, MND and PPM had a com­bined to­tal of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,325 votes. PNM polled 161,962 and UNC had the pop­u­lar vote with 202,584.

Just over a hand­ful of the 84 plus par­ties reg­is­tered with EBC are ac­tive full-time or par­tial­ly. The ma­jor­i­ty list­ed are dor­mant or de­funct.

Mick­ela: Pa­trotric Front open to talks

Mick­ela Pan­day says her Pa­tri­ot­ic Front (PF) par­ty which is con­test­ing the elec­tion is open to talks “with every­one who shares the same be­liefs, prin­ci­ples and val­ues as PF.”

That was her re­ply on whether PF will join oth­er par­ties, whom, and the sta­tus of any talks.

The PF was formed in 2019 but did not par­tic­i­pate in Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

She ex­plained, “We were im­ple­ment­ing struc­tures and ma­chin­ery nec­es­sary to fight the 2020 elec­tion.”

Asked about the num­ber of mem­bers PF has ac­quired since then, she said, “We’ll know the ex­act num­ber (of mem­bers) af­ter the elec­tion re­sults.”

On where she may con­test, Pan­day said, “As things stand to­day, I do in­tend to con­test, which con­stituen­cy I chose to sub­mit my nom­i­na­tion pa­pers for will de­pend on where I be­lieve I can make a re­al im­pact on the lives of the peo­ple who live there.

“We’re pre­pared for elec­tion. Can­di­dates will be cho­sen dur­ing a screen­ing process which will be trans­par­ent and based on mer­i­toc­ra­cy, we’ll start cam­paign­ing and be­com­ing more high pro­file in due course.”

She did not re­ply on how many UNC mem­bers/per­son­al­i­ties have come to PF such as Adesh Nanan, John Humphrey or oth­ers who at­tend­ed her par­ty’s launch. She re­peat­ed that the par­ty was open to talks with all who share PF’s be­liefs. That was al­so her an­swer when asked whether she had talks with ex-PP min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

She was sim­i­lar­ly non-com­mit­tal re­gard­ing her views of oth­er par­ties and in­de­pen­dent can­di­dates and whether she would be link­ing with them for elec­tion. “We live in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety where every­one’s al­lowed to ex­press their views and con­test any elec­tion,” she said.

Asked whether she was speak­ing to UNC MPs and whom, she replied, “I speak to every­one.”

On views that the elec­tion is main­ly a PNM/UNC fight, she said, “Now that PF is a vi­able op­tion, that may no longer be the case.”

On her view of the PNM’s per­for­mance, she said, “We in­tend to fo­cus on so­lu­tions and not waste time mud­sling­ing. It’s for the peo­ple to de­cide.”

And her views of UNC? “The peo­ple will de­cide.”