For­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith is of­fi­cial­ly back in pol­i­tics.

Grif­fith an­nounced the start of his Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) with an In­sta­gram post on Sat­ur­day, with a call for peo­ple to be­come reg­is­tered sup­port­ers of the NTA.

"A key con­stant in my life is that of ser­vice to my coun­try and my peo­ple," Grif­fith says in the in­tro­duc­tion.

"Be­ing of ser­vice has al­ways been a bridge to the light for me and af­ter en­gag­ing in nu­mer­ous con­ver­sa­tions, lis­ten­ing to many per­spec­tives and read­ing your count­less con­tri­bu­tions, I am, more than ever, com­mit­ted to the mis­sion of im­prov­ing our coun­try through trans­for­ma­tion and con­tin­ued na­tion­al ser­vice this time through the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance, the NTA," Grif­fith said.

"Our coun­try has no­ble, pro­gres­sive vi­sion­ary, hard-work­ing cit­i­zens who de­sire to ful­fil our mot­to, to­geth­er we as­pire, to­geth­er we achieve, there­fore I in­vite every cit­i­zen of T&T to reg­is­ter your in­ter­est and de­sire to as­sem­ble un­der the ban­ner of the NTA," he said.

Grif­fith said this was the start of the process of na­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion.

"For those who share sim­i­lar views that our na­tion re­quires im­me­di­ate and ur­gent trans­for­ma­tion, this is your bridge to that light­house," he said, show­cas­ing the par­ty's sym­bol, a light­house over an ob­scure im­age of peo­ple hold­ing hands.

Grif­fith gave two num­bers, 482-GARY and 483-GARY, for peo­ple to mes­sage to reg­is­ter.

Af­ter five hours on­line, the video had some 34 com­ments show­ing sup­port.

Sun­day Guardian asked Grif­fith if the par­ty would be ready for the up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions and who were the oth­er mem­bers of the NTA, he said "soon" but did not re­veal any­thing fur­ther.

Weigh­ing in on the NTA

One po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst, Dr Win­ford James, weighed in on the rise of third par­ties in the coun­try.

"Third forces are a re­ac­tion of the two ex­ist­ing par­ties, both of which are eth­nic­i­ty-based," James said.

James said that a lot of peo­ple want­ed to get away from pol­i­tics based on eth­nic cir­cles.

The elec­torate, he said, was still vot­ing along eth­nic lines, and as new par­ties do not have that eth­nic sup­port sys­tem, they fail.

"They don't have that ba­sis in votes. So Gary has come along, and the ques­tion is now whether he may make an im­pact that oth­er peo­ple could not make," he said.

He said third par­ties in the po­lit­i­cal land­scape could hint at the cit­i­zens' dis­en­chant­ment with ex­ist­ing pol­i­tics.

"Most of the third par­ties have gone to the ceme­tery, but they come nonethe­less be­cause there is some­thing gen­er­at­ing them, and his is the lat­est third par­ty to come," James said.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad weighs in

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said that suc­cess for third, fourth and even fifth par­ties lay in coali­tion with the Op­po­si­tion.

"A third par­ty in a two-par­ty sys­tem would prob­a­bly suf­fer the same fate as the oth­er third par­ties," she said.

She said that the oth­er two par­ties–the PNM and the UNC–are eth­ni­cal­ly aligned, as is the elec­torate. The oth­er por­tion of the elec­torate, she said, votes for the third op­tion, but it is not enough to win a seat.

She said that de­spite Grif­fith's pop­u­lar­i­ty, she did not see him be­ing suc­cess­ful.

"We've had pop­u­lar lead­ers be­fore, we had Jack Warn­er who was tremen­dous­ly pop­u­lar, and he could not gar­ner that sup­port when he was no longer in pol­i­tics, and he could not help the peo­ple the way he could have when he was in gov­ern­ment.

"We saw Win­ston Dook­er­an who en­joyed tremen­dous pop­u­lar­i­ty as well, and then it just whit­tled away, and the COP was just able to res­ur­rect in 2010 when it be­came part of the coali­tion," she said.

Ram­per­sad said coali­tions could hap­pen pre or post-elec­tion. She said that even if each par­ty con­test­ed the elec­tion on their own and then won seats, they could com­bine those wins to have the ma­jor­i­ty.