Jack Warner’s Independent Liberal Party (ILP) will remain independent and will be contesting all 41 seats in the upcoming general election, Warner said on Wednesday night.
He told the T&T Guardian yesterday he still maintained his recent calls that all the Opposition parties should join forces to fight the People’s Partnership (PP) but in the absence of that he was contesting independently.
He said he would continue to hold talks with the Alliance of Independents (AI) and other groups. He said the politics in T&T was now so fluid that decisions had to be made on a 24-hour basis.
Two weeks ago, Warner participated in the Chaguaramas march, on land issues, alongside People’s National Movement (PNM) leader Dr Keith Rowley, AI’s Nicole Dyer-Griffith and MSJ’s David Abdulah.
Speaking at a Pierre Road, Charlieville, meeting Warner said he never thought that after five years “Kamla” would have to fight to win a general election but, he said, “every Monday morning” the PP was turning the sod for schools and “building more hospitals than it have patients for.”
However the ILP will not be going to the Chamber of Commerce’s political debate.
Warner told supporters: “Instead of debating, we will be walking so put on your walking shoes, put on your green (ILP) shirt. On Sunday while other parties will be in Mandela Park (PNM) and Constantine Park (PP), we will be in church at an inter-faith service.”
Contacted by the T&T Guardian yesterday on last year’s statement that he would not contest his Chaguanas West seat again, Warner said no decision had as yet been made by ILP on who would contest which seat.
On Rowley’s statement at a PNM forum last Sunday that he (Rowley) would not have any bargaining or “horse-trading” for positions in a PNM Government and would not want people seeking posts on the basis that their party was keeping the Government together, Warner said:
“Any decision that has to be made has to be made long before election is held. I don’t call it horse-trading but it has to be done prudently so that after the election something like what happened with the COP won’t occur.”