CARISA LEE

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC MP, has re­vealed that her par­ty has be­gun talks with oth­er par­ties to fight the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tion.

How­ev­er, in re­sponse, lead­ers of the oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties whom Guardian Me­dia spoke with to­day are in­sist­ing that any coali­tion talks with the UNC must be about na­tion­al uni­ty.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA), Gary Grif­fith, said the fo­cus should not on­ly be seen as sim­ply a unit­ing of par­ties, but unit­ing the na­tion.

Grif­fith stat­ed that the coun­try has seen too much ha­tred, di­vi­sion, vic­tim­iza­tion and in­tim­i­da­tion over the last eight years. 

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive Par­ty, Nikoli Ed­wards, said there are many lessons that should have been learnt from the last Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship arrange­ment and many lessons that the pop­u­la­tion has tak­en away from that ex­pe­ri­ence.

He added that any in­ter­est in a coali­tion has to be gen­uine and fo­cused on not sim­ply re­mov­ing the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) from of­fice but rather, pro­vid­ing the kind of rep­re­sen­ta­tion that the peo­ple de­serve.

Ed­wards said his par­ty would al­ways pro­mote sen­si­ble col­lab­o­ra­tion but not­ed it has to be mean­ing­ful and strate­gic, with “coun­try above all” as its man­date.

Mean­while, the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) said it is open to dis­cus­sions with the UNC. Po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke told Guardian Me­dia his par­ty re­gards the up­com­ing elec­tion as cru­cial. 

Duke stat­ed that fail­ing to re­move the PNM from pow­er will mean wait­ing for an­oth­er 20 or 30 years to try again.  He said cit­i­zens of the coun­try are aware of the ne­ces­si­ty for change.

And po­lit­i­cal leader of Uni­ty of the Peo­ple (UTP), Nikosy Phillips, said the par­ty has no prob­lem col­lab­o­rat­ing.  How­ev­er, Phillips not­ed the UNC has made state­ments in the past that do not align with the UTP’s phi­los­o­phy. 

With that in mind, the UTP leader said the par­ty’s sec­re­tary will write to Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar to set up a meet­ing, adding that if the goal is to pro­tect cit­i­zens, the UTP will be open to talks.