Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay­marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the pro­posed coali­tion con­tin­ues to be a work in progress, as her par­ty is yet to de­ter­mine how the seats will be di­vid­ed among the groups.

How­ev­er, one thing is for cer­tain, she says the UNC will not work with Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith in the next gen­er­al elec­tion.

This, as Per­sad-Bisses­sar again yes­ter­day called out Grif­fith for dis­re­spect­ing her mem­bers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a brief­ing at the UNC head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas last evening, Per­sad-Bisses­sar made it clear where her al­liances lie.

She said, “Let me make it very clear, as leader of this par­ty, I am not in­ter­est­ed in work­ing with the NTA. The NTA has been very dis­re­spect­ful to elect­ed mem­bers of my ex­ec­u­tive and I can­not see how we can work with them in that kind of sce­nario.”

She added, “With re­spect to the COP, I am read­ing in Guardian Me­dia that I have been in se­cret back­door meet­ings with the COP, that has nev­er hap­pened. I talk to Prakash. We are lawyers. We were in law school to­geth­er. We were in the same class. I talk to Prakash from time to time, but Prakash and I have had no dis­cus­sions about an en­gage­ment of the COP or the UNC, that has not hap­pened … The COP seem to have their own is­sues, so we will see where that goes,” she added.

She al­so made it clear the UNC will not be screen­ing for any of the seats in To­ba­go.

How­ev­er, it is not yet con­firmed how many seats the par­ty will con­test.

And Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the PEP and UNC can­di­dates will not com­pete against each oth­er, as they will all be count­ed un­der the UNC.

PEP leader Phillip Alexan­der al­so re­vealed his par­ty has ten can­di­dates in­clud­ing him­self, which he will soon of­fer to the UNC. These can­di­dates will be screened by the PEP, not the UNC, he said. How­ev­er, he did not name the oth­er nine can­di­dates.

To date, UNC has screened prospec­tive can­di­dates for 16 con­stituen­cies but on­ly con­firmed eight.

Asked about the speed at which she is se­lect­ing can­di­dates, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she is not wor­ried nor does she be­lieve she’s mov­ing too slow­ly in choos­ing can­di­dates.

She said, “I don’t think it’s an is­sue about speed. I think it’s an is­sue about get­ting the best per­sons and about qual­i­ty of per­sons to serve. We are se­lect­ing a team to gov­ern Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are not sim­ply se­lect­ing an MP to look af­ter con­stituen­cy X or Y. So, when we are fin­ished with it, we must have a team that’s a clear gov­er­nance team to res­cue Trinidad and To­ba­go, to build Trinidad and To­ba­go and that’s how I see it.

“Our par­ty has done this be­fore so it’s noth­ing new. There’s noth­ing about run­ning out there and call­ing names to­mor­row morn­ing, and that’s where we’re go­ing with cau­tion to make sure that we get the best pos­si­ble team.”

Some of the seats screened with no can­di­dates con­firmed yet in­clud­ed St Au­gus­tine, Moru­ga/Table­land, Oropouche West, Ch­agua­nas West, and Na­pari­ma.

Asked if she did not have con­fi­dence in her in­cum­bent MPs be­ing re-se­lect­ed for these con­stituen­cies, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there might be some mov­ing around of can­di­dates de­pend­ing on who the oth­er can­di­dates from the oth­er groups are.

Yes­ter­day, UNC screened for five more con­stituen­cies, in­clud­ing Laven­tille East/Mor­vant, Laven­tille West, St Ann’s East, Port-of-Spain South and Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West. All five con­stituen­cies are cur­rent­ly held by the PNM.

Dur­ing the brief­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so con­demned the Gov­ern­ment for not de­bat­ing the Salaries Re­view Com­mis­sion (SRC) re­port in Par­lia­ment and re­it­er­at­ed her call to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to in­vite in­ter­na­tion­al ob­servers for elec­tions.

She said she is not com­fort­able with on­ly hav­ing Cari­com ob­servers.