When it comes to strange po­lit­i­cal bed­fel­lows, T&T has seen quite a lot of these.

The coun­try’s pol­i­tics has long been dom­i­nat­ed by al­liances, most­ly seek­ing to kick out or keep out the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), which has firm­ly stuck to its win-alone, lose-alone elec­tion pol­i­cy from its in­cep­tion.

Yet, as sweet as the bed may seem, the land­scape is lit­tered with po­lit­i­cal sep­a­ra­tions and di­vorces.

So it was hard­ly sur­pris­ing that Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar all but told Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith to shoot his shot else­where, rather than keep aim­ing his hopes on unit­ing with her par­ty.

The mar­riage, in this case, last­ed just over a year from Ju­ly 2023, when Grif­fith found him­self back in the bo­som of the UNC.

At a meet­ing at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Grif­fith re­unit­ed with In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er and Per­sad-Bisses­sar to give sup­port­ers hope they were ready to take on the PNM again as a unit­ed front.

In fact, Warn­er was so hap­py that he prompt­ly an­nounced the dis­band­ing of his own par­ty.

But Warn­er was soon com­plete­ly gone from the UNC’s em­brace and Grif­fith’s grip be­gan to slip af­ter his con­stant at­tacks against UNC big­wig Jear­lean John.

By Feb­ru­ary, Grif­fith an­nounced that the UNC lead­er­ship’s

po­si­tion to­ward “small par­ties” was “dis­heart­en­ing, di­vi­sive, dis­mis­sive and dis­re­spect­ful,” af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar ques­tioned what his par­ty could bring to the ta­ble.

The writ­ing was al­ways on the wall, as Grif­fith in­ten­si­fied his at­tacks against John, whom he blamed for the UNC’s po­si­tion.

From there on, it was al­ways go­ing to be an up­hill task to con­vince the UNC of his view that the par­ty not on­ly need­ed an al­liance to de­feat the PNM, but need­ed an al­liance with the NTA to do so.

What Grif­fith has strug­gled to un­der­stand is that to win back the em­brace of the UNC, he need­ed to con­vince its lead­er­ship that his par­ty has a sup­port base and/or proven track record to make an al­liance worth their while.

It is fac­tu­al that the UNC has on­ly won one gen­er­al elec­tion fight­ing alone—the 19-16 re­sult in 2000, which sup­ports the ar­gu­ment that po­lit­i­cal al­liances have large­ly worked to its ben­e­fit.

But if Grif­fith hopes to stand a chance of restor­ing the short-lived unit­ed stance of Ju­ly 2023, he must prove his NTA can live up to the UNC’s al­liances of 1995 and 2010.

In 1995, the NAR brought its two To­ba­go seats to give the UNC a chance to gov­ern af­ter the 17-17-2 dead­lock and the coali­tion of the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice, Con­gress of the Peo­ple, Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee and To­ba­go Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Peo­ple all join­ing with the UNC, was sol­id enough to oust a PNM that was al­so strug­gling with its in­ter­nal is­sues.

There is no doubt that Grif­fith be­lieves his NTA has what it takes to help the UNC in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions. But un­less he can find a way to con­vince the UNC lead­er­ship of this, their sep­a­ra­tion seems head­ed for a full-fledged di­vorce.

His bat­tle now will be to con­vince those in the 10 seats his NTA and the UNC are both con­test­ing, that his par­ty can make a dif­fer­ence on its own.