THE Congress of the People (COP) has decided to partner again with the UNC in another coalition.
While the party is willing to give the UNC a chance to show it has learnt from its past mistakes, it wants firm commitments from the UNC to ensure history does not repeat itself.
COP interim political leader Kirt Sinnette made those comments on December 13.
Sinnette attended discussions with Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other groups at the UNC's headquarters in Chaguanas on December 12 about a coalition ahead of next year's general election.
He said, "We agreed to work with the UNC for the upcoming general election. We cannot fight any election by ourselves."
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COP has also been in discussions with the National Transformation Alliance (NTA) and HOPE (Honesty Opportunity Performance Empowerment) about an election alliance.
HOPE political leader Timothy Hamel-Smith recently said the three parties were looking at a formal announcement about this next month.
NTA political leader Gary Griffith, Sinnette continued, felt the COP should not have accepted the UNC's invitation to the meeting.
Griffith has claimed the coalition Persad-Bissessar is creating is to help the UNC get back into government and then sideline its coalition partners as it did in the former People's Partnership coalition.
Sinnette said he consulted former COP leaders Winston Dookeran, Prakash Ramadhar and Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan about attending the meeting.
"They all said I should attend the meeting."
He believed the new coalition would be different to the PP.
Persad-Bissessar, Sinnette continued, in the meeting said she learnt from her past mistakes with the PP.
Griffith said once the PP won the 2010 election, the UNC with 21 of the 29 seats sidelined the COP for the duration of its five year term in office.
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Sinnette said, "We have a little more time on our hands than back then (in 2010)."
He was hoping for written, legal agreements this time to ensure that no party benefited at the expense of others in the coalition.
"Before, we had nothing."
Sinnette repeated, "We should have learnt from the past."
Asked what this meant for NTA/COP/HOPE alliance talks, Sinnette said those discussions would continue.
He believed the NTA should be part of this UNC led-coalition.
Sinnette said Persad-Bissessar claimed the reason "she did not invite the NTA to work with her was because it continued to attack her, she and her deputy political leader Jearlean John."
John, he continued, is the person who "brings in the money right now for the UNC."
Sinnette said John had big business connections.
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Asked if he would convince NTA and HOPE to join the coalition, Sinnette said HOPE would have its own chance to talk with the UNC.
In a statement on December 13, Hamel-Smith said HOPE was unable to send a representative to the meeting because it received late notice about it.
"Despite this, we have expressed our willingness to engage in meaningful discussions with the UNC. We have proposed a meeting early in the new year to explore the framework for a coalition of interests and the potential formation of a government of national unity ahead of the 2025 general election."
Hamel-Smith, a former Senate president under the PP government from 2010-2015, believed the formation of such a government
is essential to addressing pressing issues such as crime and the economy.
