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The National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) hopes to be a unity bridge between the ILP and ruling PP, says NAR leader Dr Carson Charles. He spoke to the Guardian Saturday night, shortly after it was announced he would be addressing ILP’s first convention at Macoya yesterday. Addressing ILP’s gathering yesterday, Charles said, “I’d be misleading you all if I said we would not be sharing a platform elsewhere, as we believe in united action. We get the PNM as punishment every time we fail to unite.”
He said the ILP and NAR would focus on doing programmes and projects together and not simply just “talking”. After the convention, Charles said working on programmes for communities was a change from the usual approach of talking on election eve about sharing up seats and who “can get what.” Charles said the NAR didn’t share the view the COP is dead: “The COP, the UNC all have roles to play. I’d like to see them all work together to implement community programmes.”
He said NAR had written the UNC and COP some time ago on having dialogue, but there was no headway. Charles was screened by UNC for the St Joseph by-election in October. He said while the NAR supported the PP, it was not a signatory to PP’s Fyzabad Accord. The NAR had also written the ILP and dialogue between both sides had developed in the last two weeks, he said.
“Getting together has always been done but staying together is always the challenge. This time we have an opportunity to learn from the past and that’s why we started these talks early.” Charles will hold his monthly meeting with Works Minister, Suruj Rambachan today. “I’m sure it’ll be an interesting meeting,” he said.
Charles estimated the NAR has about 2,000 members. He said NAR had about 500 National Council members. A meeting of its 400 East-West Corridor activists is to take place next weekend at La Joya.
