Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

The Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) is ready to con­test gen­er­al elec­tions and will “first­ly” be se­cur­ing To­ba­go East and West in elec­tions.

This was the word yes­ter­day from PDP leader Wat­son Duke, whose par­ty ap­peared to be among the few ready for polls.

Guardian Me­dia spoke to var­i­ous par­ties on their pre­pared­ness af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at Thurs­day’s Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in Ch­agua­nas, said an elec­tion is due some­time “soon” and it may be the most sig­nif­i­cant elec­tion in T&T’s his­to­ry.

The PNM was put on elec­tion foot­ing since its Jan­u­ary Gen­er­al Coun­cil ses­sion and the par­ty’s await­ing word af­ter East­er on nom­i­na­tions in cer­tain ar­eas, in­clud­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-held seats.

On whether PDP will con­test all 41 con­stituen­cies in T&T or on­ly the two To­ba­go seats, Duke said, “PDP’s con­test is first­ly se­cur­ing To­ba­go East and To­ba­go West with­in the na­tion­al elec­tions.”

“The two can­di­dates will be an­nounced in due time,” he added on if he’d con­test To­ba­go East.

PDP’s meet­ings will be launched in Au­gust, he said.

Duke was al­so asked if there has or will be any talks with for­mer PDP col­league – now es­tranged – Far­ley Au­gus­tine, who’s To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary and who has his own To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty.

Duke said, “The PDP is a uni­fy­ing po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion, not part of any ‘po­lit­i­cal sim­my – dim­my’. To­ba­go could have been bet­ter off had it not been for the self­ish am­bi­tion of some who thought gov­ern­ing was like a class­room where cit­i­zens be­come chil­dren af­ter elec­tions.”

THA’s Au­gus­tine didn’t re­spond to queries on the TPP’s pre­pared­ness.

Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance’s Gary Grif­fith said, “The NTA was al­ways more than pre­pared in an­tic­i­pa­tion of an elec­tion, even by the mid­dle of this year. We were work­ing on our can­di­dates and in the next two weeks, we’ll be an­nounc­ing some of our can­di­dates, or con­stituen­cy care­tak­ers.”

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and oth­er UNC lead­er­ship of­fi­cials didn’t re­ply to texted queries on the PM’s an­nounce­ment, if UNC was ready and the sta­tus of nom­i­na­tions and screen­ing. UNC nom­i­na­tions opened last De­cem­ber and are ex­pect­ed to close soon. How­ev­er, a cam­paign team of­fi­cial on­ly said, “Elec­tions…bring it on!”

Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Alexan­der, chal­leng­ing yes­ter­day’s GML sto­ry on re­cent UNC/NTA/PEP is­sues, said, “As of this writ­ing, noth­ing Guardian Me­dia has re­port­ed that pur­ports to come from the lead­er­ship of the UNC has been con­veyed to me by any­one in the UNC …

“Dis­cus­sions are on­go­ing, and while the one per cent are keen on foist­ing their man of busi­ness on the Op­po­si­tion so they could safe­ly play both sides, Kam­la and UNC are aware Grif­fith failed at the height of any pop­u­lar­i­ty he had, to make any dif­fer­ence to their for­tunes - and the en­tire par­ty has seen what I’m able to do with a sin­gle Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon an­nounce­ment.”

HOPE not ready, COP/GPTT al­liance

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), which re­cent­ly en­tered an arrange­ment with the HOPE par­ty, has now al­so ce­ment­ed an al­liance with the Green Par­ty of T&T led by Everold Ho­sein, COP leader Kirt Sin­nette said.

He added that if the Prime Min­is­ter’s words on elec­tion ring true, “In the words of our found­ing fa­ther - If a snap elec­tion is called, a snap de­ci­sion will be made.”

“In the in­ter­im, we con­tin­ue work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly in bring­ing like-mind­ed cit­i­zens and groups to­geth­er in T&T’s best in­ter­ests.”

A state­ment from COP and GPTT said their al­liance is their “uni­fied com­mit­ment to T&T’s de­vel­op­ment”. Both aligned to work on a trans­for­ma­tive ini­tia­tive, geared to­wards a com­pre­hen­sive sus­tain­able na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment dlan.

Their state­ment added, “We’re com­mit­ted to fos­ter­ing in­clu­sive di­a­logue, en­cour­ag­ing all like-mind­ed po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ties/in­di­vid­u­als to join this al­liance and con­tribute to­wards for­mu­lat­ing a ro­bust Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Plan.”

HOPE deputy leader (gov­er­nance) Louis Lee Sing said a pos­si­ble ear­ly elec­tion is the on­ly course open to PNM’s leader.

“I’ve long said he wouldn’t do what­ev­er his pre­de­ces­sor did, but Mr Man­ning in his grave must be smil­ing, as he’s about to learn that I’m wrong in my cal­cu­la­tions!” Lee Sing added.

“Ear­ly elec­tions is the on­ly thing (Row­ley) can do, as the forces which can on­ly be found in the lack of per­for­mance by the Gov­ern­ment, the vi­cious­ness of its lead­er­ship to­wards peo­ple who speak out against what the very lead­er­ship says and does, are a gath­er­ing force wait­ing to un­leash a trash­ing not soon to be for­got­ten!”

Lee Sing said HOPE isn’t ready for elec­tion but was dili­gent­ly do­ing the work. He said HOPE has been screen­ing.

“From day one ours has been a mis­sion to find good peo­ple wher­ev­er we’ve held a meet­ing,” he said.

He said HOPE re­mains open to any arrange­ment based on its be­lief that it doesn’t mat­ter who is right, but what is right for T&T as pri­or­i­ty.

“We’ve en­tered in­to an agreed po­si­tion with the COP and will be work­ing with them. Like­wise we’re con­tin­u­ing to hold dis­cus­sions with all who’ve vis­it­ed us ... but we’re not at lib­er­ty to pro­vide names!” Lee Sing said.