Hours af­ter the UNC an­nounced it was meet­ing with small­er par­ties and some trade unions, the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) says it will drink wa­ter and mind its busi­ness.

In a state­ment to­day, the NTA said it will stand firm to en­sure that the bridge con­stituen­cy of in­de­pen­dent vot­ers is prop­er­ly rep­re­sent­ed and nev­er ex­ploit­ed again.

It said it re­mains un­wa­ver­ing in its com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that the bridge con­stituen­cy of in­de­pen­dent, float­ing vot­ers is gen­uine­ly rep­re­sent­ed and nev­er ex­ploit­ed or tak­en for grant­ed.

"We find it in­ter­est­ing that small­er po­lit­i­cal par­ties who have been sum­moned by an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty and who were re­cent­ly la­belled as vote split­ters, and pop-up par­ties, are now seen as rel­e­vant play­ers in dis­cus­sions about the fu­ture of gov­er­nance. What­ev­er hap­pened to, “We can win the next gen­er­al elec­tions alone?" Did some­one wake up and smell the cof­fee, and re­al­i­ty kicked in? This shift in per­spec­tive un­der­scores the evolv­ing dy­nam­ics of pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

As for the NTA, we will drink our wa­ter and mind our busi­ness. While oth­ers may fo­cus on form­ing ‘Cos­met­ic Al­liances’, the NTA re­mains ded­i­cat­ed to en­sur­ing the voic­es of in­de­pen­dent vot­ers are heard and their con­cerns pri­or­i­tized," the NTA said.

The par­ty added that it re­spects the right of any par­ty to choose its col­lab­o­ra­tors, but firm­ly be­lieves that these vot­ers—who his­tor­i­cal­ly have been piv­otal in de­cid­ing the out­comes in mar­gin­al con­stituen­cies, and by ex­ten­sion who form the Gov­ern­ment—de­serve a clear, au­then­tic vi­sion and lead­er­ship, not tem­po­rary over­tures de­signed to se­cure votes.

" We will note, how­ev­er, the in­clu­sion of an in­di­vid­ual who, over the years, has made the most vile state­ments and vowed to “work for the PNM for free” to en­sure op­po­si­tion forces do not form the next Gov­ern­ment. How and if this af­fects the oth­er par­ties re­mains to be seen," it said.

The NTA promised to re­main com­mit­ted to of­fer­ing a vi­able al­ter­na­tive that speaks di­rect­ly to the needs of the bridge con­stituen­cy, en­sur­ing they are nev­er used or dis­card­ed for po­lit­i­cal gain, and pre­vent­ing the same mis­takes of the past.

It said its mis­sion re­mains un­changed: to stand apart from the pol­i­tics of con­ve­nience and en­sure that in­de­pen­dent vot­ers re­ceive mean­ing­ful rep­re­sen­ta­tion root­ed in in­tegri­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty.