Cer­tain for­mer front­line politi­cians from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and Con­gress of the Peo­ple are con­sol­i­dat­ing ef­forts which have been oc­cur­ring in the last year to pro­duce an al­ter­na­tive po­lit­i­cal of­fer­ing to the rul­ing PNM and Op­po­si­tion UNC.

Sev­er­al mem­bers of the group spoke to the Sun­day Guardian on the de­vel­op­ment last Fri­day and yes­ter­day. They con­firmed the group’s been putting to­geth­er frame­works via dis­cus­sions with dif­fer­ent peo­ple, in­clud­ing known po­lit­i­cal faces, since 2017. But they stressed UNC founder Bas­deo Pan­day isn’t in­volved.

At a De­cem­ber func­tion held by UNC MP Gan­ga Singh, Singh and for­mer UNC front­lin­ers—Pan­day, ex-min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath, Jack Warn­er and oth­ers—called for uni­ty. But UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly said peo­ple were wel­come to join UNC but it wasn’t re­turn­ing to a coali­tion.

Sub­se­quent­ly, peo­ple work­ing on an al­ter­na­tive of­fer­ing have pushed for­ward. Key per­son­al­i­ties from the var­i­ous par­ties have been hold­ing dis­cus­sions with per­sons in si­lo groups. These in­volve for­mer front­line PNM of­fi­cials, ex PP/UNC min­is­ters and MPs and for­mer front­line COP mem­bers, the Sun­day Guardian was told.

Apart from politi­cians, at­tor­neys and eco­nom­ic ex­perts, sources said the ex­pect­ed new group­ing has “pow­er­ful” busi­ness back­ing, in­clud­ing “con­glom­er­ates,” a large South­ern hard­ware fam­i­ly and oth­er busi­ness­peo­ple. But they dis­count­ed claims an en­ti­ty may be launched af­ter Car­ni­val.

For­mer UNC front­lin­er Bharath, who con­firmed he’s in talks with one group, said, “The sit­u­a­tion with the ex­ist­ing Gov­ern­ment is hope­less. Un­less the Op­po­si­tion puts its house in or­der, we’re go­ing to be left with this Gov­ern­ment for many years. I don’t think that’s in the peo­ple’s in­ter­est.”

For­mer COP front­lin­er and Sen­ate pres­i­dent, at­tor­ney Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, with­out be­ing spe­cif­ic on any ef­fort, said he be­lieved peo­ple all over T&T are hav­ing talks.

“What’s emerg­ing is, there’s a need for change in the gov­er­nance to trans­form T&T. It’s too ear­ly to sug­gest a par­ty may emerge, there are dif­fer­ent ways to ef­fect change. But in T&T pow­er is per­haps the way one can ef­fect trans­for­ma­tion,” he said.

Hamel-Smith launched the un­suc­cess­ful Third Force Move­ment in 2015 with Nicole Dy­er-Grif­fith’s Al­liance of In­de­pen­dents and the Na­tion­al Al­liance for Re­con­struc­tion.

Sus­pend­ed PN­Mite Har­ry Ra­goo­nanan (for­mer PNM Oropouche chair­man) al­so con­firmed he has a group hold­ing talks. He was sus­pend­ed from PNM in 2017 on al­leged bid-rig­ging.

“But PNM’s con­sti­tu­tion says if a mat­ter isn’t dealt with in six months it’s null and void. My se­nior coun­sel sent PNM a let­ter last Fri­day, telling them to deal with the mat­ter or drop it,” Ra­goo­nanan said.

On a po­lit­i­cal al­ter­na­tive, Vas­ant Bharath said, “It’s sim­ply time for some­thing new. Ex­ist­ing par­ties have failed T&T. We’re look­ing for­ward with hope for some­thing that can pro­vide good gov­er­nance and re­store T&T to what it was.”

He con­firmed talks have been oc­cur­ring with UNC peo­ple, some from PNM and COP.

For­mer PP min­is­ters Lar­ry Howai, Kevin Ram­nar­ine and Sta­cy Roop­nar­ine weren’t avail­able to clar­i­fy if they were in­volved. Sources said “one or two” for­mer PNM of­fi­cials who’d con­test­ed last year’s PNM in­ter­nal poll were al­so in dis­cus­sions.

Ex PNM min­is­ter Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira-Nunez said, “Re­gard­ing any al­ter­na­tive group, I’m not in any group.”

For­mer PN­Mite Louis Lee Singh said he wasn’t in talks with any one group but felt T&T’s tired of what’s avail­able po­lit­i­cal­ly and wants some­thing with new dis­pen­sa­tion and di­rec­tion.

“I’ll con­tin­ue talks with the un­der­stand­ing T&T needs to move from where it’s at now. If T&T’s to have a fu­ture, it has to do with us re­ject­ing the past and present and mov­ing for­ward. There are many who put coun­try first even if they be­long to oth­er par­ties. Those peo­ple will break the stran­gle­hold we’ve been forced to ac­cept,” Lee Singh said.

Pan­day mean­while said no one had ap­proached him on the de­vel­op­ment.

“If any­one does I’m pre­pared to lis­ten to any­one in an ef­fort to make T&T bet­ter. Peo­ple mis­un­der­stood what I’d said about uni­ty in De­cem­ber. What I meant was uni­ty of all peo­ple. It’s on­ly when peo­ple unite, can we solve T&T’s prob­lems,” said Pan­day, whose daugh­ter Mick­ela’s al­so prepar­ing to launch a par­ty.