Third force parties:

THE LEADERS of the country’s third force political parties have scented blood in Trinidad and Tobago’s political waters in the wake of last week’s continuing disintegration of the Opposition United National Congress (UNC) and are seeing this as the perfect opportunity to replace the UNC as the ruling PNM’s main opponent in the next general elections which are constitutionally due in Trinidad and Tobago in 2007.

This was the view articulated yesterday by political leader of the Movement for National Development (MND) and former legal counsel to the Leader of the Opposition, Garvin Nicholas.

Last month, the MND joined forces with the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) and the Democratic Party of TT (DPTT) in a bid to present themselves as a credible alternative to both the PNM and the UNC.

Nicholas told Newsday that last week’s events in and out of Parliament show that the UNC “has now become a joke” and the nation’s political landscape has now been blown wide open.

Last week, Basdeo Panday was convicted and sentenced to two years in jail for failing to declare a London bank account under the Integrity in Public Life Act 1987. President George Maxwell Richards revoked his appointment as Opposition Leader, Siparia MP Kamla Persad-Bissessar was appointed the new Opposition Leader, UNC political leader Winston Dookeran occupied the Opposition’s backbenches in the Lower House to protest actions being taken against him by the UNC’s executive, and Caroni East MP Ganga Singh resigned as Opposition Chief Whip.

Yesterday, Panday and Persad-Bissessar dismissed House Speaker Barry Sinanan’s statement that only Dookeran could appoint the Chief Whip and the UNC’s parliamentary caucus (minus Dookeran) chose Caroni Central MP Dr Hamza Rafeeq to replace Singh.

Nicholas said all of these events “strengthen our position” and shows that the MND, NAR and DPTT were absolutely correct to embark on their current course of action.

Asked if it was at all possible for these three parties to consider partnering with the UNC to battle the PNM in the next general elections, the MND leader said this would not happen because the UNC does not share their principles of unity, equity and democracy.

He repeated his offer to the embattled Dookeran to leave the UNC and join them. Nicholas said Dookeran’s credibility as a political leader with ambitions to become prime minister would continue to be undermined unless he can do something quickly to recapture what has been lost.

Nicholas said the population’s response to the parties’ draft manifesto has been tremendous and that manifesto will be published in all three daily newspapers this week.

He added that the three parties are continuing to act as individual political entities at this time but will eventually form themselves into one organisation. Nicholas also touched on a series of cottage and public meetings being planned by the three parties throughout TT in the near future.