The re­cent up­grad­ing of the PNM par­ty head­quar­ters at Bal­isi­er House was a sig­nif­i­cant event in the pol­i­tics of this coun­try. A well-es­tab­lished par­ty head­quar­ters is an im­por­tant sym­bol of the long-term vi­a­bil­i­ty of a po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Dr Williams had a vi­sion of the es­tab­lish­ment of the PNM as a long-term en­ti­ty for the po­lit­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of the coun­try.

This vi­sion was re­port­ed in The Na­tion news­pa­per on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 5, 1962, in a col­umn writ­ten by the then gen­er­al sec­re­tary of the PNM, Nicholas Si­mon­ette, as fol­lows:

“This week I wish to re­fresh the minds of par­ty mem­bers on the ideas which cir­cu­lat­ed in the par­ty when the de­ci­sion to ac­quire a par­ty head­quar­ters was first tak­en. Here is what the po­lit­i­cal leader said in his ad­dress to the Third An­nu­al Con­ven­tion on Oc­to­ber 17, 1958: “This is what we have to do. We have to build our par­ty or­gan­i­sa­tion from the bot­tom up. We have to re­or­gan­ise our sys­tem of ed­u­ca­tion so that, through the par­ty, it pen­e­trates the deep­est mass­es of the peo­ple. We have to re­or­gan­ise our press on the same scale. The whole con­sti­tutes what we have to look up­on as the de­vel­op­ment pro­gramme of the par­ty, which in­volves above all the fi­nanc­ing of these vast projects. The first es­sen­tial is a par­ty head­quar­ters …” (p 5).

The sig­nif­i­cance of a par­ty head­quar­ters is what sep­a­rates se­ri­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties from the fly-by-night op­er­a­tors who want to of­fer them­selves to the elec­torate as se­ri­ous en­ti­ties that can seek to move a na­tion for­ward. T&T has had sev­er­al po­lit­i­cal par­ties that have been formed over the years and have of­fered them­selves for ser­vice.

The on­ly one that has come clos­est to of­fer­ing a sta­ble po­lit­i­cal par­ty head­quar­ters was the ULF which lat­er mor­phed in­to the UNC. This was large­ly the prod­uct of Bas­deo Pan­day as the leader of the All-Trinidad Sug­ar Es­tates and Fac­to­ries Work­ers Trade Union in­so­far as he was able to use the premis­es of the Rien­zi Com­plex in Cou­va as the UNC head­quar­ters.

How­ev­er, in the post-Pan­day era af­ter the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship lost the 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, the new lead­er­ship of the union evict­ed the UNC from Rien­zi Com­plex based on a land­lord-ten­ant dis­pute.

Since that time, the UNC has been search­ing for premis­es to house the par­ty to con­duct their ac­tiv­i­ties. They have moved to two lo­ca­tions in the af­ter­math of their evic­tion, how­ev­er, they have not made the es­tab­lish­ment of a per­ma­nent par­ty head­quar­ters their num­ber one pri­or­i­ty. They must have a plan to make this hap­pen once they con­tin­ue to of­fer them­selves to the coun­try to seek the per­mis­sion of the elec­torate to take the reins of gov­ern­ment.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tion news­pa­per for Fri­day, April 26, 1963, un­der the head­line “Gold­en Key to Bal­isi­er House” the fol­low­ing was re­port­ed:

“Dr Williams said: We had been look­ing for­ward to this great day for many years, and what we will see to­day as we en­ter the build­ing … we would un­der­stand is the work of many peo­ple, many con­trib­u­tors, drawn from all walks of life in the coun­try, drawn from all lev­els of our na­tion­al Par­ty. The idea of a Par­ty Head­quar­ters is at least five or six years old. But for the first time in 1961, dur­ing the elec­tions, we launched the cam­paign for funds through­out the coun­try … and it be­came pos­si­ble to en­vis­age the re­al­i­sa­tion of the dream. The ap­peal fund was large­ly un­der the con­trol of the Do­na­tions Com­mit­tee with the po­lit­i­cal leader as chair­man …” (p 6).

The PNM were able to use the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tion as a means to raise funds from all across the coun­try as well as from in­side the par­ty. This strat­e­gy was cou­pled with the sup­port of oth­er per­sons who were piv­otal to mak­ing Bal­isi­er House a re­al­i­ty.

The ar­ti­cle in the Na­tion news­pa­per went fur­ther to re­port on Dr Williams say­ing the fol­low­ing: “I be­lieve that to­day I ought to draw at­ten­tion to the work of three mem­bers of the par­ty … work which has re­sult­ed in the es­tab­lish­ment of the Head­quar­ters. The first, par­ty Chair­man, Sir Learie Con­stan­tine … The sec­ond mem­ber of the par­ty whose ser­vices I would like to place on record is Mr John O’Hal­lo­ran … The third mem­ber re­spon­si­ble for our pres­ence to­day is Mr Al­fre­do Bermudez …”

These in­di­vid­u­als were cen­tral to the suc­cess of the com­ple­tion of the build­ing. The con­clu­sion of Dr Williams’ ad­dress as re­port­ed in that edi­tion of the Na­tion read as fol­lows:

“We were in rent­ed premis­es. This is our own lo­cal habi­ta­tion, there­fore I give it a name. I name this Par­ty Head­quar­ters Bal­isi­er House.”