Griffith questions Kamla’s motives behind ‘alliance’ talks
Written by Clint Chan Tack on December 12, 2024
NATIONAL Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader Gary Griffith has questioned what he described as an attempt by United National Congress (UNC) political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to fool the population into believing the UNC is forming a genuine political alliance with other entities to win the next general election.
Persad-Bissessar was scheduled to meet with representatives of the Progressive Empowerment Party (PEP), Movement for National Development (MND), Oilfield Workers Trade Union (OWTU), Congress of the People (COP), HOPE (Honesty Opportunity Performance Empowerment) and the Public Services Association (PSA) at the UNC’s headquarters in Chaguanas on December 12.
PEP has aligned itself with the UNC but has not formally announced it is forming an election alliance with it.
The MND is led by former UNC attorney general Garvin Nicholas.
At Labour Day celebrations in Fyzabad on June 19, OWTU president-general Ancel Roget and PSA president Leroy Baptiste spoke about a national front alliance between the labour movement and political parties opposed to the PNM, including the UNC.
The NTA was not included in the meeting.
In a statement before the meeting, Griffith said, “Amazing that pop-up parties have now become relevant (to the UNC).”
He added, “It is also amusing that a party that said the nastiest things about her during and after local government elections, and promised to do everything to ensure UNC never gets into government, she wants to work with. Yet another party (NTA) that worked with her during local government elections and sent official correspondence to her to meet, she has refused. Not surprising.”
The NTA had an alliance with the UNC for last August’s local government elections, which ended in a seven-seven tie between the PNM and UNC.
While it won no districts in those elections, the NTA got an alderman on the Diego Martin Borough Corporation.
Griffith and Persad-Bissessar have fallen out since February, when Persad-Bissessar accused smaller parties of piggybacking on the UNC’s resources and doing nothing to help the UNC.
The rift between them widened in September when Persad-Bissessar criticised Griffith’s performance as commissioner of police from 2018-2021.
HAPPIER TIMES: UNC leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and NTA leader Gary Griffith at a joint meeting at the SWWTU Hall on Wrightson Road, Port of Spain on July 19, 2023. The parties had announced an alliance heading into the local government election. – File photo
The NTA has been in talks with the COP and HOPE on an alliance for next year’s election.
With respect to the UNC’s meeting with the seven entities it announced it would speak with, Griffith said, “NTA will stand firm to ensure that the bridge constituency is never again used and discarded. So the NTA is going to drink our water and mind our business.”
Griffith said Persad-Bissessar was free to meet and work with whoever she wants to.
But he added, “Independent, floating voters are not stupid. They know what is a real alliance and they know if there are plans to use them to get their votes especially in marginal seats and then discard them.”
Griffith repeated his promise that the NTA will “properly represent that bridge constituency of those floating independent voters and to ensure that they will not be used, to prevent what happened before.”
Griffith has repeatedly said the NTA was willing to work with other parties that share its principles.
He has said the dominance of a single party over others was the reason for the failure of previous coalitions such as the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR, 1986-1991) and the People’s Partnership (PP, 2010-2015).
Griffith served as national security adviser to Persad-Bissessar and national security minister in the former PP government between 2010-2015.
The Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) and the Patriotic Front (PF) led by Mickela Panday (daughter of UNC founder and former prime minister Basdeo Panday) were not part of these talks either.
Another former member of the PP, the MSJ left that coalition in 2012 after its leader David Abdulah complained that the UNC was turning a deaf ear to the MSJ’s concerns about allegations of corruption against the PP at that time and appointments being made to certain state enterprises.
At that time, Roget fully supported the MSJ’s decision to leave the PP.
He has also said the MSJ is the official political party representing the labour movement.
The post Griffith questions Kamla’s motives behind ‘alliance’ talks appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.
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