Griffith: Reject COP leader's 'back-door' deal with UNC

NATIONAL Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader Gary Griffith said he is not surprised by newly appointed Congress of the People (COP) political leader Prakash Ramadhar's abandonment of his party's memorandum of understanding (MOU) with NTA and HOPE.

In a media release on February 8, Griffith said Ramadhar is working his way back into the arms of the United National Congress (UNC), similar to arrangements with the party ahead of the 2010 general election, which was won by the People's Partnership coalition.

He said, in a repeat of 2010, Ramadhar will be given a "safe seat" to contest in this year's general election and the COP will be used to attract undecided voters to the UNC.

In a release titled "Prakash’s five-step plan back to the UNC," Griffith said Ramadhar's "decision to unilaterally abandon the MOU... shows the continued agenda by Mr Ramadhar, to assist in trying to fool floating/ independent voters to vote for the UNC."

Griffith said there have been weeks of secret talks between Ramadhar and UNC political leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, which the latter acknowledged long before Ramadhar returned at the helm of the COP.

He said the next stage of the plan was for Ramdhar to heap unwavering praise on the Opposition Leader, "even after the 148,000 COP voters experienced the most blatant acts of political domestic violence meted out to them by Kamla Persad-Bissessar, whereby the COP was sidelined from the governance of the country, as UNC had acquired 21 seats in the (People's) Partnership in 2010."

Griffith said Ramadhar will not align himself with any party "that refuses to be used and then discarded by the UNC," hence the abandonment of the MOU.

He claimed the previous COP leadership had "hurriedly signed" it because they "were fully aware of the planned agenda."

He criticised Ramadhar for not holding discussions with the other parties to the MOU before withdrawing the COP. He said that would have been the professional thing to do.

Griffith predicted that the UNC will claim to have a third party in the coalition, "using COP’s name as a political tool to try to manipulate independent and third-party voters into supporting their candidates in marginal constituencies."

He added, "All this aimed at ensuring the UNC gets at least 21 seats to form the next Government, and then the third-party supporters who assisted to get them there, would be rejected yet again."

Griffith said many of COP's former supporters are now behind the NTA and other political parties.

"They will not be misled by a cosmetic alliance that serves only to prop up a full UNC government."

He said Ramadhar is blamed for the decline of the COP in the electorate from over 148,000 votes in 2007 to just 467 votes in 2020, "because he refused to stand up to the UNC in the 2010 coalition government."

Griffith urged voters to "see through these predictable manoeuvres and stand firm against any attempt to manipulate their votes through back-door deals, because it is clear, the people deserve better."