Griffith: Political alliances must be about more than beating PNM
The political leader of the National Transformation Alliance (NTA) says there is room for reconciliation between the NTA and the United National Congress (UNC).
And Gary Griffith is also encouraging potential political allies to think beyond ensuring a defeat for the People’s National Movement (PNM) at the next national poll.
Earlier this week, a breakaway faction of dissatisfied UNC members announced the formation of a new party called Unity Is Power, citing what it called ‘petty politics’ as the reason for its decision to create something new.
Cracks also have developed in the relationship with NTA leader Gary Griffith.
However, Griffith asserts that reconciliation must be based on more than just defeating the PNM in the next General Elections.
He says this country needs much more.
“It is not going to be based on a marriage of convenience, where we’re just joining up together to defeat the PNM,” Griffith asserts. “We’ve been there, and we’ve done that. We saw it in 1986, and we saw it in 2010.”
“That bridge constituency of those people calling on the ‘knife and fork persons’, the middle income, those persons who are a PNM or a UNC ‘till they die’ … I have nothing against that. The 200,000 persons on both sides—that is your right, and I respect you for it,” he said.
“What we are working on is to ensure there is a road map towards the transformation of Trinidad and Tobago,” the NTA leader stressed, “not just joining up to defeat the PNM.”
Gary Griffith maintains the NTA can only strengthen the political efforts of the United National Congress.
“At no time have I ever said anything. The only concern that we do have,” he says, “is that almost every single person in the UNC is fully aware that without a strategic alliance, the UNC has never won an election on their own in a three-horse race. Never.”
The NTA political leader was a guest on today’s edition of CNC3’s The Morning Brew show.
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