KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) will pro­tect the coun­try from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-led coali­tion Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is try­ing to form with small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties and trade unions.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the is­sue yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley on­ly said, “The PNM will pro­tect the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go from that!”

His com­ment came even as some po­lit­i­cal ex­perts were al­so ques­tion­ing the po­ten­tial of the coali­tion.

The UNC on Thurs­day held talks with three po­lit­i­cal par­ties and five trade unions on a coali­tion to fight the PNM in the next gen­er­al elec­tion. And al­though the UNC re­mains mum on whether these new al­lies will con­test any of the 41 con­stituen­cies, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath and po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed be­lieve a coali­tion can on­ly be suc­cess­ful if the small­er par­ties bring some­thing sub­stan­tial to the elec­tion ta­ble.

Dr Ra­goonath said, “There are many in­stances where we could have al­liances, but these al­liances doesn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that these small­er par­ties are bring­ing any sub­stan­tial con­stituen­cy to the al­liance. All they give to the al­liance is sim­ply the name that they are sup­port­ing it. But, as to whether they are bring­ing a con­stituen­cy to the al­liance is yet to be seen.

“As far as I know, the MND (Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment) has at­tempt­ed many elec­tions and has nev­er been suc­cess­ful at any. Phillip Alexan­der has at­tempt­ed many elec­tions with the PEP (Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty) and has not been suc­cess­ful at any, so, what con­stituen­cy are they bring­ing? I can­not say if they’re bring­ing any­thing at all that is of any sig­nif­i­cance to the UNC.”

He al­so said Thurs­day’s meet­ing does not mean it is of­fi­cial­ly an al­liance, since there’s been no of­fi­cial agree­ment signed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar signed the Fyz­abad De­c­la­ra­tion on April 21, 2010, to form the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple (TOP), Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ) and Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC).

Echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, Dr Mo­hammed said, “I think the UNC has the abil­i­ty to fail on its own and win on its own, but al­liances are al­so good in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est and in stake­hold­ers’ in­ter­ests be­cause it shows that they are not think­ing my­opic.

“Even though trade unions don’t have can­di­dates, what they have are na­tion­al is­sues that can be ad­dressed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in a mean­ing­ful man­ner. But what I am con­cerned about is all of this hype, which is good, but all these eyes on the UNC places a greater onus on the UNC to more than just take pho­tos and speak on the sur­face. There is an ex­pec­ta­tion that the cal­i­bre of can­di­dates would be very high.”

He added, “It can­not be busi­ness as usu­al. At this stage of the game, I am con­cerned about the cal­i­bre of can­di­dates that the UNC will put for­ward look­ing on as to what has al­ready been pre­sent­ed with the ex­cep­tion of San Fer­nan­do West... This elec­tion is not one to be tak­en for grant­ed. While I ac­cept the PNM re­mains un­favourable, it would be very fool­ish for the UNC to un­der­es­ti­mate the PNM’s elec­tion day ma­chin­ery and their cam­paign ap­pa­ra­tus. There­fore, I look for­ward to see­ing what the out­come of the al­liance brings to the ta­ble. But, I am al­so con­cerned about the abil­i­ty of the UNC to get out of their com­fort zone and put peo­ple, in the mar­gin­al seats es­pe­cial­ly, who are ca­pa­ble of gain­ing the re­spect of the na­tion­al pop­u­la­tion and cross­ing 21 (con­stituen­cies).”

On Thurs­day, the UNC met with lead­ers of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP), Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) and Move­ment for Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment (MND), as well as ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA), Oil­field Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU), Trans­port and In­dus­tri­al Work­ers Union (TI­WU), Trinidad and To­ba­go Postal Work­ers’ Union (TTP­WU) and the Fire Ser­vice As­so­ci­a­tion (FSA).

In ad­di­tion, HOPE leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith has al­so re­vealed he’s ac­cept­ed the UNC’s in­vi­ta­tion to be­gin dis­cus­sions.

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, Hamel-Smith said he missed the op­por­tu­ni­ty to meet the UNC on Thurs­day but is look­ing for­ward to dis­cus­sions in ear­ly Jan­u­ary 2025.

As for the oth­er mem­bers of the new coali­tion, PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste said they all have sim­i­lar in­ter­ests.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia at UNC’s head­quar­ters on Thurs­day, Bap­tiste said, “We find it as a meet­ing of per­sons with a com­mon­al­i­ty of in­ter­ests. We have one in­ter­est. The in­ter­est is to ad­vance the in­ter­est and wel­fare of work­ers in this coun­try. We have come here and to join in any strug­gle that can lib­er­ate us from the con­tin­ued op­pres­sion of work­ers and their fam­i­lies by this par­tic­u­lar regime, this gov­ern­ment.”

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, one of the UNC’s dis­si­dents, al­so said he’s on board with the po­ten­tial new coali­tion.

“Dur­ing the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots’ cam­paign, we em­pha­sised the prin­ci­ple of di­a­logue. At the time, the par­ty’s po­si­tion was to stand alone. I am pleased to see that this stance has been re­versed, and di­a­logue has now be­gun. While it’s still ear­ly, we re­main hope­ful that, through col­lec­tive ef­forts, we can re­move the PNM from gov­er­nance be­fore the dam­age be­comes ir­repara­ble,” Paray said yes­ter­day.

At­tempts to con­tact Op­po­si­tion Leader Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Jack Warn­er and sev­er­al gov­ern­ment mem­bers on the is­sue were un­suc­cess­ful yes­ter­day.