SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Four days af­ter Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) leader Prakash Ra­mad­har sig­nalled his in­ten­tion to con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions, he is gear­ing up to form a coali­tion with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

The al­liance, Ra­mad­har said, must be done swift­ly, as time is al­ready against them.

“Coali­tion is a must,” Ra­mad­har told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day dur­ing an in­ter­view at his par­ty’s new head­quar­ters in Curepe.

“It’s not about pow­er. It’s about the po­si­tion of au­thor­i­ty to make re­al all the things you dream about. So there­fore the ne­go­ti­a­tions will be cru­cial­ly im­por­tant.”

He said team­ing up with the UNC is the on­ly way they can de­feat the PNM at the 2025 polls.

Dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Sat­ur­day, Ra­mad­har ad­mit­ted that the COP was not bound by a Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance head­ed by Gary Grif­fith and HOPE’s leader Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith that they had en­tered in­to.

COP’s for­mer in­ter­im leader Kirk Sin­nette had en­tered in­to the MOU last De­cem­ber with the two po­lit­i­cal par­ties.

Grif­fith crit­i­cised Ra­mad­har for an­nounc­ing the MOU with­out first con­tact­ing the oth­er par­ties.

Stat­ing that the COP has been build­ing ca­pac­i­ty and strength, Ra­mad­har de­nied that he re­cent­ly made se­cret deals with UNC’s po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to con­test the St Au­gus­tine seat on a COP tick­et.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bissses­sar and I have had no dis­cus­sions on a coali­tion in any form or fash­ion, much less about what seats are to be avail­able to the COP. Let us put that to rest.”

“How could I have se­cret meet­ings?” he asked, stat­ing that he re­cent­ly re-en­tered the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

“There have been no back­room deal­ings or deals be­ing cut. We are not about that,” Ra­mad­har in­sist­ed.

The COP has yet to de­cide how many seats it should con­test.

Ra­mad­har, an at­tor­ney, won the St Au­gus­tine seat in 2010 for the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship.

In 2015, he cap­tured 12,606 votes on a COP tick­et to be­come St Au­gus­tine MP.

The UNC has al­ready screened Khadi­jah Ameen for the St Au­gus­tine seat who went up un­op­posed but has not been named by Per­sad-Bisses­sar as yet.

Ques­tioned how soon he in­tend­ed to have dis­cus­sions with Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ra­mad­har said “there will come a mo­ment...a thresh­old and I think we are ap­proach­ing that. When I feel con­fi­dent and rein­tro­duce my par­ty to the pub­lic first of all... af­ter then COP’s gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ralph Hunte will send a let­ter to the UNC and oth­er play­ers to have a meet­ing on how we shall pro­ceed.”

He said they have to move with alacrity.

On Mon­day, Ra­mad­har said an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty had ap­proached the COP to join them.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Tues­day that the pro­posed coali­tion with PEP, LOVE and trade union lead­ers con­tin­ues to be a work in progress.

She said the UNC will not work with Grif­fith who has been too dis­re­spect­ful to her ex­ec­u­tive.