The UNC/NTA falling-out

THE EDITOR: The toxicity of our politics has risen several levels with news that the Opposition Leader and founder of the National Transformation Alliance (NTA)are no longer reading from the same political page; the same book – general elections 2025 – or the same chapter – beating the incumbent PNM. Clearly some page-turning has happened.

This is sweet TT, where plain talking is not bad manners. Mrs Persad-Bissessar can indeed boast of some 300,000 voters. Can the NTA?

NTA leader Gary Griffith, a former police commissioner and national security minister, is a popular figure who is yet to prove that his personal popularity could equate to the same political range as that of the leader of the UNC.

We will always have to harken to the PNM always securing many thousands of Afro-Trinbagonian voters and the UNC base supporters being mostly East Indians. We cannot walk away from our social history.

There were African slaves and Indo indentured workers, and descendants of these races love and desire to vote this way.

So what? Both the PNM and the UNC have significant numbers of supporters of both races.

When it comes to political base support, size does matter. End of story.

Yes, there is indeed a considerable number of Trinbagonians of many races who do not automatically gravitate to either the PNM or the UNC. And we have come too far to turn back.

Today, and as I said many years ago when the Congress of the People (COP) launched their party at the Hotel Normandie in Port of Spain, I wrote a letter regarding the paucity of a wide enough range of citizens sitting in the audience.

I asked then: Where were the vast numbers of shining-bush-tea-drinking and roast-bake-eating people at this launch ceremony?

So, is the NTA, like the COP, too elite to score wide-ranging political votes from fence-sitters?

The COP founder, a former finance minister, is a well-respected individual. When he walked away from the COP, it died...literally. Love and admiration of a leader does not quantify political popularity unless you can boast of a wide-ranging social support base.

The PNM and UNC dominate TT's politics because political beauty lies in the eyes of the beholders. The UNC leader can always boast of a minimum of 18,000 votes in Siparia. Likewise, the PNM leader in Diego Martin West.

Basdeo Panday did it for the UNC. Can Kamla do a repeat performance? You never know until you try. So, is it going to be either the PNM or the UNC winning in 2025?

As we say in local parlance, the "onliest" person who can come out and cause real political ruction is Mickela Panday, leader of the Patriotic Front. And we all know why.

LYNETTE JOSEPH

Diego Martin