NATIONAL Transformation Alliance (NTA) political leader Gary Griffith says the UNC has serious decisions to make about the suitability of its political leader, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, to lead it to victory in next year's general election.
While an NTA-UNC alliance remains a possibility, Griffith insisted the NTA will not be disrespected by any political party and will not accept any alliance with the UNC which sees that party using the support of non-partisan voters to get back into government.
Griffith, who served as national security adviser to Persad-Bissessar and national security minister in her former People's Partnership (PP) coalition government from May 2010-September 2015, said the UNC used those voters to get into office, and abandoned them shortly after doing so.
In a Whatsapp statement sent to Newsday on August 27, the day after Persad-Bissessar claimed at a UNC cottage meeting in Chaguanas that Griffith was a failure as commissioner of police (CoP) from 2018-2021.
Referring to Persad-Bissessar's comments at the meeting and previous comments in which he said she forgot the benefits of the NTA-UNC alliance in last August's local government elections, Griffith said this is a case of Persad-Bissessar acting on bad advice to destroy something that was working.
The local government elections ended in a seven-seven tie between the PNM and UNC. The NTA did not win any electoral districts in any of the 14 local government corporations, but secured an alderman in the Diego Martin Borough Council.
Persad-Bissessar and Griffith had a public falling-out in February after Persad-Bissessar claimed smaller political parties were piggybacking on the UNC and bringing nothing useful to their relationship.
Griffith said, "It is obvious that people control the direction of Kamla Persad-Bissessar and those are the people who would have been very closely aligned with the PNM pre-2010.
"The PNM indirectly have a degree of controlling the decision of the UNC."
Griffith said the UNC's national executive (natex) – which is dominated by the Persad-Bissessar-endorsed Star slate which won the party's last internal elections in June – and the wider UNC membership need to be aware of how detrimental Persad-Bissessar's actions will be to the UNC's chances of returning to government.
He said the direction she was taking "of hating everybody and trying to destroy and attack anybody who is not in the UNC is going to surely lead them back into opposition."
Griffith said the UNC faces the real prospect of being in opposition for the next 15 years if Persad-Bissessar is allowed to continue to behave in the manner she is doing now.
He suggested the UNC natex consider replacing her as political leader but allowing her to continue as opposition leader.
Griffith recalled that late UNC founder Basdeo Panday made that move in 2006, when he stepped aside as party leader and Winston Dookeran replaced him in that role. Panday, who died in January, was opposition leader at the time.
Griffith also recalled that Panday, not Dookeran, had majority support in the natex and continued to guide the UNC's direction.
"Unless the present natex do the same, every single one of the present natex knows that Kamla's directions from taking instructions from somebody who was previously strongly aligned to the PNM, of her going alone and attacking everyone who is not a UNC, is a sure way of them going back in opposition."
He repeated the natex has two choices: command Persad-Bissessar to behave appropriately, or remove her as political leader.
Griffith held out a slim possibility of an NTA-UNC election alliance.
"Anything is possible. We are not going to close our doors in having conversations with persons. "What we are not going to do is be disrespected."
He said there had been three times Persad-Bissessar "disrespected" the NTA in recent months.
"I don't know what crazy juice she drank, but she just jumps out on a (political) platform and starts to openly attack me for no reason whatsoever."
Griffith said Persad-Bissessar's behaviour is turning away floating voters and disenchanted UNC and PNM supporters.
"They will never want to support somebody like that, because it shows she...cannot be trusted."
He recalled only a few months ago, Persad-Bissessar praised him as the best CoP and the country's best crime-fighter.
"Then a few months later, stating I was a failure. It shows that she is somebody who flip-flops."
He said Persad-Bissessar's strategy towards the NTA is clear.
"She wants to bully us, try to undermine us and then hope that we will come and blindly join with her to get her to win some marginal seats."
Griffith made a promise to Persad-Bissessar: "That and God's face, she will not see.
"I will not allow the floating voters to be used. That is what happened in 2010-2015."
In that period, Griffith continued, Persad-Bissessar exploited floating voters who were former Congress of the People (COP) supporters "to get her into government and then cast them aside."
He said it was unfortunate that Persad-Bissessar had forgotten her own political history, which clearly demonstrates that floating voters are key to any party's winning a general election.
"Her actions show that she has not learnt a darn thing. Her actions show that she has no respect."
Griffith recalled Persad-Bissessar was a National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) candidate for Siparia in the 1991 election and failed to win that seat.
"She got licks so bad that she didn't know what hit her, and then she ran and joined the UNC in 1995.
Griffith said Persad-Bissessar is aware of the significance of floating voters to an election's outcome. He recalled that in 2001, the Panday-led UNC lost the government because former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj formed a separate political party, Team Unity, which took away 200 votes from the UNC in Tunapuna and contributed to the 18-18 tie with the PNM in that year's election.
"This perception that Kamla is this great messiah and this great leader is only because she is leading one of the two major political parties."
He repeated that no workable alliance could be achieved with someone who is openly arrogant to anyone with a contrary view.
Griffith said the UNC's natex members must decide whether "they are going to blindly operate like the mice (sic) in the Pied Piper (fable) and let her lead them straight over the cliff into opposition for another five years, or are they going to stand firm and tell her enough is enough."
