Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

An agree­ment has been struck to form “a new third par­ty,” ac­cord­ing to a post on a Face­book page ti­tled Unit­ed and Proud, which has, since its in­cep­tion, been op­posed to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her team.

The in­for­ma­tion came in an un­signed post on the page on Sat­ur­day.

And UNC Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray, who led the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate in UNC’s June ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions, has, among com­ments about the post, said T&T’s ready for a fresh start and he wasn’t sur­prised “at the lev­el of dis­cus­sion on the ta­ble of many...”

The UaP page, de­scribed as a “com­mu­ni­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion” (al­leged­ly run by an East busi­nessper­son) since in­cep­tion a cou­ple years ago, has been crit­i­cal of Per­sad- Bisses­sar and the ma­jor­i­ty of her par­lia­men­tary team. That in­clud­ed the Star team she sup­port­ed in UNC’s ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

The site has car­ried in­for­ma­tion on Paray and his Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots slate which chal­lenged the Star team, but in­for­ma­tion has been com­pli­men­ta­ry of MPs and oth­ers sup­port­ing Paray’s UP team.

Paray and the four UNC MPs sup­port­ing him were not part of UNC’s re­cent Bud­get con­sul­ta­tions.

The post about a “new par­ty” emerged af­ter news that for­mer UNC coun­cil­lor Ja­son Ali had de­fect­ed to the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM). The site car­ried PNM’s of­fi­cial doc­u­ment on its nom­i­nees for nine con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Ali.

Ti­tled “Uni­ty in Di­ver­si­ty: A new po­lit­i­cal era is on the hori­zon,” the post stat­ed, “As a re­sult of the UNC lead­er­ship’s fail­ure to unite the par­ty fol­low­ing the in­ter­nal elec­tions, as well as the de­lib­er­ate omis­sion of MPs from UNC bud­get con­sul­ta­tions, word of a new po­lit­i­cal era is on the hori­zon.

“At a con­ven­tion held to­day among alien­at­ed young pro­fes­sion­als, and mem­bers of oth­er dis­af­fect­ed groups, an agree­ment has been struck to form a new third par­ty. A con­sti­tu­tion is be­ing draft­ed, and a head of­fice has been iden­ti­fied. A sym­bol has been se­lect­ed that best rep­re­sents the ethos of this new move­ment.”

The par­ty’s ab­bre­vi­at­ed name is ex­pect­ed to be UPTT and a lo­go ac­com­pa­nied the post.

The state­ment added, “The com­mon theme of all speak­ers was the need for a po­lit­i­cal move­ment to fo­cus on earn­ing the trust of the pop­u­la­tion, to be based sound­ly on good pol­i­cy and not race, eth­nic­i­ty, gen­der, or class, and, above all, to en­sure that its rep­re­sen­ta­tives con­duct them­selves with ab­solute in­tegri­ty in deal­ing with pub­lic af­fairs.

“If we con­sid­er that 30 per cent of the votes in the just con­clud­ed in­ter­nal elec­tion were cast against the in­cum­bent leader, and the lead­er­ship’s pet­ty ap­proach to uni­ty, we can con­clude that this move will be more detri­men­tal to the par­ty than a few peo­ple de­fect­ing to the PNM. Will this new en­ti­ty have an im­pact on the elec­torate in 2025? On­ly time will tell.”

Paray was yes­ter­day con­tact­ed by the T&T Guardian on the UaP and UPTT move, and whether he was af­fil­i­at­ed with the post and the plan.

Paray said, “All I can say at this time, dur­ing the cam­paign of the Unit­ed Pa­tri­ots, I made it clear that our (the UNC) route to suc­cess at the polls hinge heav­i­ly on be­ing open to di­a­logue with every­one (as I put it the good, the bad and the mad).

“The coun­try is ready for a fresh start and I am not sur­prised at the lev­el of dis­cus­sion on the ta­ble of many! This can on­ly auger well for the ben­e­fit of cit­i­zens.”

He added, “In­ter­est­ing times ahead! I look for­ward to a front row tick­et!”

Two of Paray’s UP slate mates re­cent­ly re­signed from the UNC—coun­cil­lor Ali, now with the PNM, and Jairz­in­ho Rigs­by, whose po­lit­i­cal di­rec­tion wasn’t giv­en. Oth­er UP MPs didn’t re­spond to queries on the UaP/UPTT post.

UNC of­fi­cials said they had “no idea” who the U&P group was but found the name “cu­ri­ous”.

They added, “It’s elec­tion sea­son—all kin­da things will come out of the wood­work seek­ing their in­ter­est. UNC’s too busy with T&T’s in­ter­est for that.”

A HOPE spokesman said HOPE wasn’t con­nect­ed to “any such third par­ty.”

PEP gives UNC con­di­tions for its sup­port

Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty leader Phillip Alexan­der yes­ter­day an­nounced con­di­tions he will have for sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress for the next gen­er­al elec­tions.

He said the PEP is in “mul­ti­ples of con­ver­sa­tions at mul­ti­ples of lev­els and it’s time to pin down it’s terms and con­di­tions.”

In a post, Alexan­der said the con­di­tions are:

• That UNC are op­posed to the dic­tates of and mem­ber­ship in the World Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum;

• That they agree to ex­it all WHO pan­dem­ic and oth­er sov­er­eign­ty un­der­min­ing health treaties en­tered in­to by the PNM;

• That they are cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly op­posed to the no­tion of a cash­less so­ci­ety;

• That they agree to com­mis­sion an en­quiry in­to the ad­min­is­tra­tion of jus­tice in T&T and act on the rec­om­men­da­tions; and

• That they agree to com­mis­sion an en­quiry in­to the nar­cotics trade in and through T&T and act on the rec­om­men­da­tions.

Alexan­der added, “While there is much more I would like to re­quest, these are non-ne­go­tiable. If they agree to these con­di­tions, they can re­ly on my full sup­port. If they refuse, we will raise a po­lit­i­cal army to fight both PNM and UNC in as many con­stituen­cies as pos­si­ble and let the chips fall where they may.”

He added, “The PNM is the dev­il we know. The UNC needs to guar­an­tee by agree­ment that they are not the same kind of evil, or they will be treat­ed by us as one and the same.”