Trying to make sense of this

I watched the Congress of the People bring the PNM Government down.
Make no mistake, Kamla and the UNC's no confidence motion was the machinery and the process of the fall, but it was the COP, (doing what should have been the media's, the DPP's, the police's, and any other agency and institution with oversight and investigatory authority's job) that got to the heart of the matter that was the undoing of Manning and the PNM, and history will record it so (even as the airport corruption scandal was allowed to bring down the last UNC administration).
The defense of UDECOTT and Calder Hart became so enmeshed in the identity of this last administration that when the death blow came there was nowhere for Mr. Manning to retreat to.
Such was the Prime Minister's insistence on defending the indefensible (even in the wake of the loss of his best performing Minister and the open revolt in the construction sector) that he left himself no wiggle room.
Not Axe the Tax, not the PSA and the TTRA issue, none of the other issues and the activists that were constantly taking bites out of him, (although they collectively weakened him and the party), it was the Calder Hart revelation that dealt the mortal blow.
After that it was open season on the PNM. I was embarrassed for the members of that party as they tried to weather the hurricane that was blowing the whole thing down. Die hard PNM activists, long known for their vociferous defense of all things PNM retreated into total silence and I knew one of two things were going to happen.
We were either going to have an election, or there would be revolution. The Government could not stand.

And the reason for that lead in was this:

Because of the above, the COP had finally arrived on the National stage. They had become a force in their own right, capable of affecting the politics from outside and surely were worth at least listening to. People who normally dismissed the party out of hand began speaking of them as an alternative to the defunct PNM and the remains of the UNC. It seemed to me the politics was maturing, that we as a people were growing up.

Why at this point the COP would squander this newfound wealth of goodwill to join with the criminally corrupt UNC beats me. The moral high ground was theirs to nurture and develop, why blow it away? Is Winston feeling his age? Are the members so tired of laboring outside of Parliament that any horse is a horse to ride?
The COP built their reputation as being distinguishable by virtue from both the UNC and the PNM, how can they justify joining with either side now?
Hindsight is twenty twenty, and we could never know what would have been the outcome had they stayed the course and fought this election alone on behalf of the upright majority, but I believe the disappointment that I hear from the ground everyday indicates that a groundswell of support was available to them had they remained true to the vision.

Who knows?

My support of the COP does not transfer to the 'New' UNC alphabet soup party, and I, like many decent upright citizens, have been left adrift with no political home.

I have not yet decided which I consider to be the lesser of the two evils, PNM or UNC, seems a fool's choice either way.