PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

Weeks af­ter an­nounc­ing they would be con­test­ing all seats in the Au­gust 10 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front yes­ter­day pulled out say­ing they did not have enough time to mo­bilise them­selves.

In a state­ment post­ed to so­cial me­dia, PF leader Mick­ela Pan­day con­firmed the par­ty will not be par­tic­i­pat­ing in this year’s polls de­spite al­so be­ing ap­proached by oth­er po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties to do so.

“While we were giv­en a va­ri­ety of oth­er op­tions and ap­proached by oth­er par­ties and politi­cians, we be­lieve we need­ed to stay true to the foun­da­tions up­on which our par­ty has been built. And it is for this rea­son the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front has made the dif­fi­cult de­ci­sion not to con­test the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion but to build our par­ty in­to a so­cio-po­lit­i­cal force to be reck­oned with,” Pan­day said.

On June 26, Pan­day had an­nounced that the par­ty in­tend­ed to con­test all 41 seats in the then still-to-be an­nounced polls. She al­so an­nounced that her fa­ther, for­mer prime min­is­ter and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress founder Bas­deo Pan­day, would be the par­ty’s cam­paign man­ag­er.

A week lat­er, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley an­nounced the elec­tion date.

Yes­ter­day, Pan­day ex­plained that the par­ty, which was launched in May 26 last year, did not have enough time to present it­self to the coun­try as it wished.

“It has nev­er been our in­ten­tion to split any­body’s vote but to ap­peal to the more than 50% of the elec­torate, reg­is­tered and un­reg­is­tered, who do not vote at all,” the for­mer Oropouche West MP said.

“We will not do as oth­ers have done in past, say­ing things mere­ly to gain favour, pop­u­lar­i­ty or po­lit­i­cal pow­er. To achieve this will re­quire us shar­ing our tar­get with our tar­get vot­ers, our plans to bring this vi­sion to fruition. And to give all of our can­di­dates a fair chance in the 2020 gen­er­al elec­tion.

“We do not be­lieve that this can be done in three weeks. It will not be an in­jus­tice to our young bright new can­di­dates but to the coun­try as a whole.”

She added, “The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front was not born mere­ly to fight elec­tions, it was to born to re­struc­ture our so­ci­ety. We face the up­hill bat­tle of se­cur­ing cam­paign fi­nanc­ing in an ac­count­able and trans­par­ent man­ner, which is nec­es­sary to put in place the req­ui­site elec­tion ma­chin­ery.”

Con­tact­ed on the par­ty’s de­ci­sion yes­ter­day po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said it was not un­sur­pris­ing but was the right de­ci­sion for the young par­ty.

James said un­less the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front was able to ‘steal’ a large con­tin­gent of Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers via their con­nec­tion to Bas­deo Pan­day and sway the in­de­pen­dent vote, the par­ty had lit­tle to no chance in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

“You don’t come on the eve of elec­tions and hope to make any sig­nif­i­cant dent. So it was the right de­ci­sion and it was the un­sur­pris­ing de­ci­sion. Hope­ful­ly, now she will set about build­ing a par­ty through hard work for the next five years. And she will chal­lenge not on­ly the UNC but the PNM,” James said.