Kamla: 'No coalition with anyone'

UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar declared the party is not making a last-ditch call to any other party contesting the August 10 general election to form a coalition against the PNM.

Persad-Bissessar also joined the Prime Minister in declaring that her party will not join with Watson Duke's Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP) to form a government if it fails to win enough seats on its own.

Persad-Bissessar spoke with reporters after filing her nomination papers at the Election and Boundaries Commission's office in Penal.

She was adamant that the national initiative accord she alluded to during a UNC virtual meeting on Thursday was not a call for a coalition, similar to the now defunct People's Partnership coalition which the UNC led in 2010.

"Not a coalition. We will fight alone and we will win alone."

Persad-Bissessar reminded reporters that since last year, the UNC had said it would fight the general election alone. She added, "The UNC has 39 candidates in Trinidad. We have said that Tobago will do their own battles across in Tobago."

Persad-Bissessar also said the UNC would not join with the PDP, if it won either or both of the two Tobago seats and the UNC failed to win enough seats in Trinidad to form a government.

"There is no coalition. We will win sufficient seats to form a government," she declared.

Earlier this month, Duke said in a Facebook video, "We are prepared to have a coalition, we are prepared to work with any political organisation..."

In a tone reminiscent of the "stand alone" stance taken by his predecessor Patrick Manning, about the PNM and coalitions, Dr Rowley bluntly rejected the idea that the party would ever join forces with the PDP, even to keep the PNM in government.

"Watson Duke is on a criminal charge and should not be offering himself for Parliament."

Duke was charged with sexual offences and sedition last September. He was cleared of the sedition charge in January.