Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion says it is aim­ing to win 25 seats in the next gen­er­al elec­tion and has turned its at­ten­tion to ten seats - five held by the PNM and five it cur­rent­ly holds.

Mean­while, Gary Grif­fith’s Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance is al­so tar­get­ing the same 10 seats the UNC is fo­cused on.

Grif­fith and the UNC are ful­ly at odds fol­low­ing UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s crit­i­cisms last week on his tenure as po­lice com­mis­sion­er and his re­tort about whether she’s now the lo­cal ver­sion of US Pres­i­dent Joe Biden.

Guardian Me­dia had sent a query to the UNC on Sun­day seek­ing de­tails of the par­ty’s elec­tion plan­ning meet­ing that day at its head­quar­ters.

Meighoo, in a re­lease yes­ter­day, stat­ed that the meet­ing in­volved co­or­di­na­tors, ac­tivists, and the Na­tion­al Ex­ec­u­tive as­sem­bled in what was de­scribed as an elec­tions prepa­ra­tion meet­ing “to se­cure the 10 most crit­i­cal con­stituen­cies in Trinidad.”

There was no men­tion of To­ba­go in the state­ment and if the UNC will con­test those two seats or seek arrange­ments with To­ba­go par­ties.

UNC deputy po­lit­i­cal leader Jear­lan John said yes­ter­day, “We put what we have to put in the press state­ments. These are the seats we met with last Sun­day.” She in­di­cat­ed oth­er meet­ings would be held ahead on the mat­ter but didn’t specif­i­cal­ly say which oth­er con­stituen­cies.

The 10 con­stituen­cies in Trinidad that the UNC is fo­cus­ing on are San Fer­nan­do West, La Hor­quet­ta/ Tal­paro, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, To­co/San­gre Grande, Moru­ga /Table­land, Ma­yaro, Pointe-a-Pierre, Ch­agua­nas East and Barataria/San Juan.

The seats of San Fer­nan­do West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Tu­na­puna, St Joseph, and To­co/San­gre Grande are held by the PNM and re­gard­ed as key mar­gin­als and pos­si­ble “swing seats”.

Moru­ga /Table­land, Ma­yaro, Pointe-a-Pierre, Ch­agua­nas East and Barataria/ San Juan are held by the UNC and are al­so keen­ly con­test­ed.

The UNC’s re­lease stat­ed that all 10 con­stituen­cies, “have been bat­tle-test­ed and proven in the 2023 Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions, which the UNC won con­vinc­ing­ly. These seats are now ready to be se­cured by the UNC for a 25-seat vic­to­ry at the next gen­er­al elec­tions.

“In 2020, the UNC were on­ly 2,530 votes away from win­ning gov­ern­ment, in on­ly two con­stituen­cies: St Joseph and San Fer­nan­do West. On Sun­day, the UNC demon­strat­ed with the ut­most clar­i­ty that it has not on­ly closed that gap, but it has ad­vanced much fur­ther.”

The state­ment quot­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar say­ing, “It is not mon­ey that will win the next elec­tions, but the love, af­fec­tion and trust built be­tween our can­di­dates and the peo­ple that will win!”

There was no word on when the UNC’s screen­ing of can­di­dates will be­gin.

MPs who were part of Rush­ton Paray’s Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate for the UNC’s na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive polls - Rod­ney Charles, Dr Rai Rag­bir, Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly, Ani­ta Haynes Al­leyne - said they were not in­vit­ed to Sun­day’s meet­ing.

NTA tar­gets same seats as UNC

The NTA said yes­ter­day it has iden­ti­fied the first 10 con­stituen­cies it will be con­test­ing in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion.

In a state­ment, the NTA said can­di­dates will be an­nounced by Sep­tem­ber.

Par­ty leader Gary Grif­fith al­ready said will vie for the St Joseph seat.

The par­ty al­so in­tends to con­test San Fer­nan­do West, La Hor­quet­ta/Tal­paro, Tu­na­puna, To­co/San­gre Grande, Moru­ga/Table­land, Ma­yaro, Pointe-a-Pierre, Ch­agua­nas East and Barataria/San Juan.

The NTA added, “We recog­nise the over­whelm­ing sup­port for the NTA in these con­stituen­cies and view this as a cru­cial step in our jour­ney to­ward na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion as we pre­pare for the gen­er­al elec­tion.”

The par­ty al­so took is­sue with an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal en­ti­ty us­ing its trade­mark colours.

“We al­so note, with in­ter­est and amuse­ment, that an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty has cho­sen to adopt cam­paign colours sim­i­lar to those of the NTA. This move, af­ter 36 years of pre­dom­i­nant­ly us­ing an­oth­er colour, speaks vol­umes about the sig­nif­i­cance and rel­e­vance of the NTA in the cur­rent po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

“Whether this change is an at­tempt to mim­ic the NTA’s in­flu­ence or to cre­ate con­fu­sion among the elec­torate, it on­ly serves to high­light the im­pact we are hav­ing on the po­lit­i­cal dis­course in T&T,” it said, shy­ing away from nam­ing the par­ty.