Unrepresented People's Party: We will not be squeezed

POLITICAL leader of the Unresented People’s Party (UPP), attorney Kenneth Munroe-Brown was the party’s only candidate able to file nomination papers on Friday.

The party had hoped to field four candidates in the Port of Spain North/ St Ann’s West, Laventille West, Tobago East and Tabaquite seats.

Speaking to Newsday on Sunday, Munroe-Brown said he was the only party member able to file nomination papers for the Port of Spain North/St Ann’s West seat.

Last week, the attorney issued a a pre-action protocol letter to the Prime Minister complaining of his failure, and that of the National Security Minister, to issue an exemption for the party’s chairman, Bishop De Verteuil, to return to TT to contest the 2020 general election in August.

De Verteuil is currently in South African and had intended to file nomination papers for the Laventille West seat.

Munroe-Brown said the failure by the prime minister or the National Security Minister to respond to the Bishop’s two exemption requests set the UPP back tremendously.

He said the lack of response was “very disrespectful.”

He said if they had received a response to the exemption requests, they could have still filed on behalf of De Verteuil.

“If they had told us ‘proceed to file’ and we will grant the exemption, we would know where we were going,” Munroe-Brown said, adding that it was “sad” that there was also no response to the pre-action letter sent last week.

In the legal letter, the UPP threatened to go to court to have the August 10 general election postponed because of TT’s closed border policy and the failure to respond to De Verteuil’s exemption request.

Munroe-Brown said that course of action was “still on the table” but maintained it is not about stopping the election but for dialogue between the party and the minister.

“Not because we are a small party we should be squeezed,” he said.

The UPP’s chairman applied on July 5 for an exemption. He filed a second on July 8 “desperately seeking the exemption to allow him to gain entry into TT from South Africa.”