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, n
