The National Transformation Alliance (NTA) will have an alderman seat on the Diego Martin Borough Corporation.
This revelation was made by NTA leader, Gary Griffith in a newspaper article.
He said the party had earned an alderman seat on the Diego Martin Borough Corporation due to the tally of votes for its candidates in last Monday’s local government elections.
However, Griffith is keeping the name of the candidate a secret for now.
In a Newsday interview, he said: “I’m liaising with all the members of the NTA governance team – about 17 people in all – and I’m also liaising with the candidates, the eight candidates who contributed to the accumulation of votes.
“It is to be noted that we did not have a candidate in all ten (Diego Martin) seats. We had candidates in eight of the ten seats.
“Having only eight candidates takes away a big impact towards the selection of aldermen.”
In a Facebook statement, Griffith said the NTA has officially created a footprint on the political map by acquiring an alderman position.
Thanking the NTA’s 31 candidates, he said the party had been the majority partner in Point Fortin and Diego Martin in its accommodation with the UNC.
Griffith described the NTA as the third major political party in the country.
“We are very proud of this achievement, and the 16,000 votes we achieved, which is made even more remarkable given that the NTA is barely a year old.
“We dramatically cut the PNM’s winning margins from 2019, in all the areas that we contested, especially in Diego Martin where (we) reduced margins as high as over 750 to less than 200 votes, hence the reward of an alderman.”
He said, “The NTA was now well-placed to build on its monumental achievement, looking to the upcoming general elections where we will convert our 58 per cent combined UNC/NTA vote into a win that will see the NTA being part of the next Government of Trinidad and Tobago.”